Using the California Institute of Technology’s (Caltech) Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) and NASA’s Near-Earth Object Wide Field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) observatory, a group of scientists has observed an aging star destroying a planet within its own star system for the first time. Astronomers have long believed that such a phenomenon occurred in red giant star systems, but have never directly observed the event — until now. Given that our own Sun will evolve into a red giant star in approximately five billion years, the research, led by Kishalay De of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, will provide astronomers with a glimpse into what the future of our solar system may look like when our Sun eventually absorbs Mercury, Venus, and possibly Earth. “This type of event has been predicted for decades, but until now we have never actually observed how this process plays out,” De said. When a main-sequence star, or any star that fuses hydrogen into helium within a hot, dense core, reaches the later years of its life, it will eventually run out of fuel within its core. When this happens, the star will begin to dramatically increase in size and turn more reddish…
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With help from NEOWISE, astronomers observe giant star destroying planet for the first time
