According to the study published in Nature, scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Harvard University, and the California Institute of Technology observed a star swallowing a planet for the first time.
For the first time, scientists have observed the moment a dying star consumed the planet. The devourer star was the size of the Sun and the planet that was consumed was a gas giant the size of Jupiter. According to CNN, the planetary demise was observed by a team of scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), Harvard University and the California Institute of Technology. They said the event holds significance since it is a gloomy preview of what will happen to our Earth when the Sun morphs into a red giant and gobbles the four inner planet.
While astronomers have previously observed other stars before and after such an event, this is the first time the swallow itself was observed, according to the study published in Nature.
“The fact that the solar system planets would get engulfed into the Sun in the future was something I had read first in high school, so it was surreal to realize that we may have found the first ever example of catching a similar event in real time” study lead author Kishalay De, a postdoctoral researcher at MIT, told CNN.
A comic strip published in Physics Magazine shows how our solar system avoids planet collisions.
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