image source, R. Hurt/K. Miller/Caltech/IPAC
A simulation of the moment when a planet comes into contact with an expanding star.
It is the first time in the world in which scientists have observed the time when a dying star swallow the planet which is the destiny that the world must face in the end
A team of scientists from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology or MIT, Harvard University. And the California Institute of Technology explains that although astronomers have seen many planets. both before and after being absorbed by the star But this is the first time that a star’s extinction has occurred. and absorption of planets has been carefully observed in real time
“The fact that planets in the solar system will be absorbed by the sun in the future It’s something we’ve been reading since college, said Principal Investigator Kichalay Dee, MIT’s research scientist. told CNN
“But it’s surreal that we’ve found examples of similar phenomena in real time.”
The death of the stars in this study It lies about 12,000 light-years from Earth and lies in the constellation Aquila. It is comparable in size to Jupiter, but about 1,000 times smaller than the star that swallowed it.
The research team first explored the phenomenon in May 2020, but it took them about a year to fully understand what they saw.
What scientists have seen is a phenomenon in which stars expand in waves. Until a million times larger than the original size which during the expansion everything in that territory has been absorbed
until the star runs out of energy and reverts back to its original size. as if it had finished digesting the swallowed planet
The astronomers also saw high-temperature flashes of white color. Followed by a long, colder light. which they deduced that It is the light produced by the absorbed planet.
image source, R. Hurt/K. Miller/Caltech/IPAC
A simulation of the death of a star
“It was a stellar explosion unlike anything I’ve seen anywhere before,” Dee said in a statement to the press. While the study results of the research team It was published in the academic journal Nature on Wednesday (May 3).
see the future of the world
One night Kishalay D noticed a signal appearing at the Palomar Observatory. in the state of california Before he took the same stellar data to check with the Cake Observatory in Hawaii. before using the Palomar Observatory’s infrared detection camera to store more information
“Infrared data that I got I almost fell off my chair,” Dee said, because the information he had seen indicated that The stars are also merging with the stars.
But after analysis using NASA’s NEOWISE infrared space telescope revealed that in fact The information he got was that the star was absorbing the planet.
“Back then, it was very difficult to get infrared data like this. Due to the high cost of infrared detectors And it’s very difficult to build a giant telescope. that can continuously take pictures in the sky.”
“But we are at a revolution in infrared astronomy. Because we have more new devices to use. And in the coming decades, we hope it will help us discover many more similar phenomena.”
Dee’s hope is that more infrared sensing survey data will be available in the future. Scientists will be able to examine all the planets in the Milky Way galaxy inhabited by Earth.
Because the phenomenon of a dead star and then engulf a planet like this It’s what the human world will face in the next 5 million years.
“We are seeing the future of the world,” Dee said in a statement. “If another (extraterrestrial) civilization were observing us 10,000 light years away at the time when the Sun was absorbing the Earth, They will see the sun rising suddenly. as if releasing something.”
