For the first time in the history of observations, scientists managed to see how a star swallowed up a planet that was next to it. The same thing will happen to the Earth in the near future.

What is known

Stars like our Sun go through the red giant phase sooner or later. At this stage, they increase by several orders of magnitude and consume the planets that revolve around them. Previously, scientists knew about this through calculations, but recently they managed to see this process in reality.

The absorption took place 12,000 light-years from our planet. The burst of radiation was recorded three years ago and was named ZTF SLRN-2020. One week was enough for the star to increase its brightness by 100 times.

The NEOWISE telescope showed that the energy release was 1000 times less than when two stars collide. This means that the star swallowed up a body that was 1000 times smaller than any of the stars, the merger of which was observed by experts.

Based on the information received, astronomers decided that the star had swallowed the planet. As a result of the absorption, hydrogen was released with a mass of 33 Earth masses. The star turned out to be about 0.8-1.5 times more massive than the Sun, and the planet was 1-10 times more massive than Jupiter.

Mercury, Venus and our planet are expected to experience the same, as The sun will become a red giant. But this will happen only after 5 billion years.

Source: space