While Earthlings went about their daily tasks in May 2020, another planet was meeting its demise, a star swallowing it for galactic supper. Researchers spotted the event, marking the first time anyone has caught a star engulfing a planet in real time.
, a team at MIT, Harvard University, Caltech and other institutions reported that they observed a planet, likely a hot Jupiter-size world, spiraling close to a dying star that was 1,000 times its size, until it was finally ingested into the star’s core. The scientists say the star grew bigger and more than 100 times brighter in just 10 days, quickly faded and then eventually turned to normal as if it finished digesting the planet.
That data astounded the team. The star shone very brightly in the infrared bands, even though the star no longer appeared bright in the visible light spectrum seen with our naked eyes. De said the star must have ejected gas into space, which condensed into dust cold enough to be observed in the infrared — suggesting the star could be merging with something else and brightening as a result.
“When it’s just a planet merging into a star, it’s intrinsically very weak, so it’s harder to find them,” said Kasliwal. “When something is harder to find, all we need is a more powerful camera.”
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