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Weird But Cool – Star Eats Planet
Scientists say they’ve finally caught a star in the act of engulfing a planet in the end stage of its life. Credit: K. Miller / R. Hurt (Caltech / IPAC) illustration
Weird But Cool – Star Eats Planet.
ABOUT STAR EATING PLANET
Astronomers have known the fate of planets like Mercury, Venus, and Earth when their host stars are about to die, but never have they observed it happening in space — until now.
Using the Gemini South telescope(opens in a new tab) in Chile, scientists have seen the first evidence of a bloated old star absorbing an exoplanet as it puffs out during its final death throes. The event was observed in a long, low-energy outburst — the sign of a planet skimming a star’s surface.
In the past, astronomers have found evidence of stars that have consumed planets, sometimes by doing a sort of post-mortem autopsy on what’s left of the dead star. But new research(opens in a new tab) published in the journal Nature presents the first direct evidence of star-eats-planet as it happened. The group hopes the event will provide other researchers with helpful clues to discover other stars consuming planets elsewhere in the universe.
