Astronomers using NASAs James Webb Space Telescope just gave a cosmic mystery a serious plot twist.
But not this time.
The star, ZTF SLRN-2020, wasnt puffing up like a balloonit appeared calm.
An artist’s concept of the planet’s orbit of the star.Illustration: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI)
Which means the planet didnt get accidentally gobbled up in explosive stellar behavior.
Instead, the distant world was doomed by a slow orbital death spiral.
Over millions of years, that orbit shrank until the planet skimmed the stars atmosphere.
The planets story then ended with a fiery faceplant into the star.
When the planets material smeared onto ZTF SLRN-2020 it likely caused the dramatic brightening that caught astronomers attention.
In fact, its revising astronomers account of the first star seen actively swallowing a planet.
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