Gregory Robinson
Scientists have caught the moment a star swallowed a planet in one big gulp, which is the same way Earth is likely to end. Nice.
On Wednesday (3 May) astronomers reported observing what appeared to be a gas giant around the size of Jupiter or larger being eaten by its star, which had become so big with old age that it engulfed the planet.
This remarkable moment happened between 10,000 and 15,000 years ago near the Aquila constellation when the star was about 10 billion years old. A quick outburst of light was released as the planet went down the stellar hatch, which was followed by a stream of dust which shone brightly in cold infrared energy, according to researchers.
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According to the study, which appears in the journal Nature, although signs of galactic banquets have been identified in the past, this marked the first time a full-blown swallowing was observed.
Researcher Kishalay De from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology spotted the bright outburst in 2020 while reviewing sky scans captured by the California Institute of Technology’s Palomar Observatory.
More observations and data analysis followed to find out exactly what researchers were looking at. This was not a case of a star tucking away at its companion star. No, this star had feasted on its planet.
This feast is somewhat of a sneak preview of how Earth’s final days may play out as it is predicted that once our sun morphs into a red giant, it will engulf Mercury, Venus and Earth.
Thankfully, Earth’s season finale won’t happen for quite a long time and we’ll all be ancient history by then. Our sun will reach its red giant phase in around five billion years and once the Earth has been gobbled by the Sun, our green and blue home will be completely vaporised and its elements will be fused into heavier elements in the Sun’s core.
Stars like our solar system’s very own ball of hot plasma have been burning for about 10 billion years and our sun is about halfway through its life.
The swallow event witnessed by researchers was quite brief and happened in one fell swoop like how you eat a canape, rather than nibbled away at the planet over quite some time, according to Caltech’s Mansi Kasliwal who was also part of the study.
Upon researching the star swallowing its planet and knowing Earth’s fate, De said: “All that we see around us, all the stuff that we’ve built around us, this will all be gone in a flash.”
Now that’s what you call a foreboding final thought.