For the first time they observe a star that engulfs a planet… the size of Jupiter

() — In a first for the world, astronomers managed to observe the moment a dying star consumed a Jupiter-sized planet, the same fate that awaits Earth.

Although scientists had already seen planets just before and just after being engulfed by a star, this is the first time a planet has been observed to disappear, according to a team from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). , Harvard University and the California Institute of Technology.

“The fact that the planets of the solar system will be swallowed by the Sun in the future is something I had first read about in high school, so it was surreal to realize that we might have found the first observed example of a similar event. in real time,” the study’s lead author, Kishalay De, an MIT postdoctoral researcher, told .

In this process, a star swells to a million times its original size when it runs out of fuel and gobbles up all the matter in its path. Astronomers observed it as a hot white flash, followed by a longer lasting, cooler signal, which they later deduced was due to the star gobbling up a planet.

“One night, I observed a star that multiplied 100 times over the course of a week, out of nowhere,” De explains in a press release. “It didn’t look like any starburst I’ve ever seen.”

An artist impression shows the disappearance of the planet. Credit: R. Hurt/K. Miller/Caltech/IPAC

The planet’s disappearance occurred about 12,000 light-years away, in the constellation Aquila, and affected a planet the size of Jupiter, according to the researchers.

The researchers observed the activity in May 2020, but it took a year to decipher what they had seen.

“One of the key pieces of evidence we were trying to understand is that the outburst was producing dust before and after the outburst,” explains De. “However, it takes time for the gas to cool down and start condensing dust molecules.”

This means the team had to wait to understand the properties of the powder, De explained.

The results were published this Wednesday in the academic journal Nature.

“Glimpse into Earth’s Future”

First, the signal appeared in data from California’s Palomar Observatory, then De searched for data on the same star at Hawaii’s Keck Observatory, before using an infrared camera at Palomar Observatory to gather more information.

“Those infrared data made me fall out of my chair,” De said, as the readings suggested that the star may have merged with another.

However, further analysis using readings from NASA’s infrared space telescope, NEOWISE, revealed that the star was, in fact, consuming a planet.

“Historically, it’s been very difficult to get this kind of infrared data, because infrared detectors are expensive and it’s hard to build big cameras that can take pictures of the sky repeatedly,” De told .

“However, we are on the verge of a revolution in infrared astronomy, with several new instruments coming online in the next decade that we hope will allow us to repeatedly find similar events.”

As a result, De hopes to further expand our knowledge.

“One of the key signals we identified was the long-lasting infrared glow that followed the optical burst,” explains De.

“We hope to be able to use the infrared emission to identify each and every planet that is being engulfed by our galaxy,” he told .

Our planet will suffer the same fate, but not before 5,000 million years, according to the researchers.

“We are looking at the future of Earth,” De said in the press release. “If some other civilization were watching us from 10,000 light-years away as the Sun engulfs the Earth, they would see the Sun suddenly glow as it ejects some material, then forms dust around it, before going back to what it was. “.