2023-05-06 04:45:28
American scientists have been devastated after watching a sun-like star swallow a planet for the first time, confirming a prediction that Earth will face the same fate 5 billion years from now. MIT scientists, in collaboration with Harvard University and the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), have observed some hints of stars just before and shortly after the act of consuming entire planets, but have never captured one live in the act so far. Published in the journal Nature, the planetary extinction appears to have occurred in our own galaxy, some 12,000 light-years away, near the eagle-shaped constellation Aquila. Astronomers discovered a star outburst that grew more than 100 times brighter in just 10 days before rapidly fading. This hot flash was strangely followed by a longer lasting colder signal. “We were looking at the final stage of swallowing,” said lead author Kishalay De, a postdoc at MIT’s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research.
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