The first star that “swallowed” a planet: new NASA information disassemble previous thesis

Rare event was observed in 2020. New study indicates that the planet was already orbiting very close to the star and has been approaching over millions of years.

It was in 2020 that James Webb detected, for the first time, a Star to “swallow” a planet. The orbit was gradually decreasing until it was swallowed completely.

Both are about 12,000 light years from Earth, still inside the Milky Way.

Two years ago the first was published about this moment, which suggested that the brightness was caused by a star to devour a planet the size of Jupiter; indicated that the star emitted a shine in the infrared spectrum about a year before the optical glare (dust clouds were already being released before the main event).

It remembers that, at that time, astronomers believed that the Star involved was similar to the sun and was entering its final phasegradually expanding as it consumed the last hydrogen reserves in its core-and swallowed the planet in this process.

Now, investigators from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) have made a kind of “autopsy” of the event.

They used detailed observations made by the James Webb space telescope, with the aid of two of their instruments: MIRI (average infrared instrument) and NIRSPEC (near infrared spectrograph). Measurements made by Miri revealed that the star is in a Extremely dense region of space.

This new suggests that, after all, the Star was not as bright as the sun – This makes the previous theory less likely, than the star would have expanded and swallow the planet.

After all, the Planet was already orbiting very close to the star And, over millions of years, was approaching Even more, until it was completely “swallowed” by the star.

“The planet finally began to brush the star’s atmosphere. From that moment on, there was a fastest falling process. The planet, as it fell, began to spread through the star, ”said astrophysicist Morgan Macleod.

The dust that had been identified by the Neowise telescope would have been formed from the cooling and condensation of gas expelled by the external layers of the star.

But now, it shows James Webb, the data indicated the presence of a warm -up molecular gas discourse much closer to the star than expected.