For the first time, astronomers have observed a star engulfing a planet, tearing it apart in a preview of what will happen to the Earth in about 5 billion years when the sun swells to its red giant phase. Discovery of the collision, which took place 12,000 light years away, could lead to a better understanding of the chemical makeup of exoplanets.
Space scientists had long assumed that such epic events take place and had even noticed a dearth of close planets in old star systems with larger stars, according to the new paper. Still, they didn’t know for sure what such a cataclysm would look like through a telescope.
Kishalay De, a researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, found the first evidence by accident, while sifting through data from the Zwicky Transient Facility, part of the Palomar Observatory in California. Every 48 hours, a camera connected to a telescope there surveys the stars, looking for those that have changed brightness during a short period of time. Normally, this is used to pinpoint supernovae, gamma ray bursts and other high-energy events.
