Astronomers Observe Disintegrating Exoplanet with Record-Breaking Dust Tail

Giant Planet Was Just Caught Falling Into Its Star and It Changes What We Thought About Planetary Death

A rare cosmic crime reveals a planet’s slow-motion death spiral into its star.

This planet is crumbling apart, giving it a giant tail like a comet

Astronomers have discovered a strange planet which is in the process of breaking up.

It’s not a comet, it’s a rapidly disintegrating exoplanet “on its last breath”

A disintegrating planet orbits a giant star. Credit: Jose-Luis Olivares, MIT. Astronomers have discovered an exoplanet 140 light-years from Earth which is disintegrating, leaving a 9-million-km-long comet-like tail. For now, the disintegrating world is about the same size as Mercury. It orbits its host star every 30.5 hours at about 3 million km – about 20 times closer than Mercury is to our Sun. The planet’s surface is likely made of magma that…

Astronomers Discover a Doomed Exoplanet That's Crumbling Away and Leaving Behind a Comet-Like Tail

The planet orbits its host star in just 30.5 hours, losing a mass of material roughly equal to Mount Everest each time

Astronomers Witness a Rocky Planet Boiling Away, Leaving Behind a Cosmic Tail

A small, rocky planet 140 light-years away is disintegrating at an alarming rate, shedding mass equivalent to Mount Everest every 30.5 hours. The planet, BD+05 4868 Ab, is so close to its star that its surface is a molten wasteland, releasing minerals into space that form a comet-like tail stretching millions of miles. MIT researchers, using NASA’s TESS satellite, discovered this rare phenomenon — only the fourth known disintegrating exoplanet. …

One Orbit, One Everest Lost: A Planet Evaporates Into a 9-Million-Kilometer Tail

Astronomers from MIT have uncovered a dramatic celestial spectacle: a Mercury-sized exoplanet that is rapidly disintegrating as it orbits perilously close to its star. The small and rocky lava world sheds an amount of material equivalent to the mass of Mount Everest every 30.5 hours. The planet, located 140 light-years away, completes an orbit every [...]