Bizarre Space First: A Tiny Star Was Spotted Consuming a Giant Planet Four Times its Size
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Bizarre space first: A tiny star was spotted consuming a giant planet four times its size
We think of stars as humongous objects that hold sway over everything in their considerable vicinity, but for the first time astronomers have spotted a giant planet that circles a dying dwarf star only a quarter of its size.
The puny sun exerts its dwindling force over the planet, stripping away its atmosphere and spinning an elegant disc of gas around itself in the process.
The oddball star carries the uninspired name WDJ0914+1914, located some 1,500 light years away, and the evaporating planet around it is thought to be something like Neptune based on the levels of hydrogen, oxygen and sulphur in the gassy disc. Yes, this planet is quite literally releasing silent but deadly stinky fumes across its solar system.
"Such a system has never been seen before, and it was immediately clear to me that this was a unique star," lead researcher Boris Ginsicke from the University of Warwick in the UK said in a release. "We knew that there had to be something exceptional going on in this system, and speculated that it may be related to some type of planetary remnant."
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