Astronomers finally spot a star consuming a planet
Scientists know that a dying star will become a giant that swallows all the planets within a certain radius, but they've never seen it happen... before now, that is. Astronomers at Caltech, Harvard, MIT and other schools havea star consuming one of its orbiting planets as it turns into a red giant.
The group first observed the burst in May 2020, but took roughly a year to determine what happened. Thanks to the NEOWISE infrared telescope, the team ruled out merging stars. The energy from the outburst was only a thousandth of what it should have been for a star-on-star collision, and there was a stream of cold dust rather than hot plasma. MIT's Kishalay De, who led the paper, also notes that Jupiter's mass is about a thousandth that of the Sun, providing a handy reference point.
This phenomenon is believed to be common in the universe, and it's believed that the Earth and other inner Solar System planets will face a similar demise when the Sun dies roughly 5 billion years from now. In that regard, the astronomers confirmed their existing models. Past studies caught stars just before and after they swallowed planets, but never in mid-digestion.
There are still unknowns surrounding planet-munching stars. This finding helps complete the picture, though, and Dethat the next wave of infrared-capable observatories will increase the chances of finding similar events. That, in turn, could illustrate how these apocalyptic processes vary across the cosmos.
Canada Latest News, Canada Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
Stellar “Ashes” – Astronomers Discover Traces of Universe’s First StarsUsing ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT), researchers have found for the first time the fingerprints left by the explosion of the first stars in the Universe. They detected three distant gas clouds whose chemical composition matches what we expect from the first stellar explosions. These findings brin
Read more »
Ancient Gas Clouds Spotted by Astronomers May Be Remnants of First Stars13.5-billion-year-old clouds are poor in iron, suggesting they precede the dissemination of heavier elements.
Read more »
Astronomers See a Star Eating a Planet for First Time EverA multi-university team of researchers published a study on Wednesday in the journal 'Nature' that described the first ever observation of a star swallowing a planet.
Read more »
Astronomers observe star swallowing planet for first time -- and it's the size of Jupiter | CNNIn a world first, scientists have observed the moment that a dying star consumed a planet — a fate that eventually awaits Earth.
Read more »
For the First Time, Astronomers Catch Glimpse of Star Swallowing Planet in One Big GulpFor the first time, scientists have caught a star in the act of swallowing a planet — not just a nibble or bite, but one big gulp.
Read more »
Cosmic Cannibalism: Astronomers Witness Star Devouring Planet in Possible Preview of Earth’s Ultimate FateGemini South captures first direct evidence of an exoplanet being swallowed by an ancient Sun-like star. For the first time, scientists have directly observed a star engulfing a planet, an event that could hint at the eventual fate of our own solar system. The discovery offers important insights
Read more »