In a first-of-its-kind cosmic discovery, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope may have captured a gas giant self-destructing by spiraling into its young star – an event researchers call "planetary suicide.”
When you imagine a planet's demise by diving into its own star, it sounds like science fiction becoming real, as if a scene from Interstellar or Dr Who.
Well, it turns out this isn’t sci-fi. In 2023, scientists at the Gemini South observatory in Chile, using the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), witnessed a “cosmic flare” about 12,000 light years from Earth, initially thought to be a dying star.
Now, the JWST data has revealed a startling truth, that the discovery was in fact a planet launching itself into its still young, occupying star.
“Platetary suicide” is not a common scientific term, but has been canvassed among the scientific community, in a poetic take on the sighting.
And, as far back as records go, this is the first time humans have observed a phenomenon of such epic proportions.
Planet dies, star feeds
Astronomers usually call a sudden brightening in the planetary skies a “nova.” And this particular marvel was thought to be a red giant – like the sun – consuming a nearby planet, a relatively common end-of-life event.
But the 2023 sighting from the JWST, coupled with recent evidence, has revealed that the star was still fusing hydrogen, therefore not quantifying as a red giant, as was originally expected.
This correction raised the stakes for scientists. They began to discuss more sublime possibilities – such as a colossal planet, roughly the size of Jupiter, spiraling inward and being destroyed by the star's outer layers.
The debris, dust and changes in the star's brightness matched models of planetary engulfment, instead of stellar aging, as assumed at the time.
When planets go rogue
This cosmic happening fetches particularly relevant comparisons with our own solar system.
Our sun is also a main sequence star. And, in about 5 billion years, it will exhaust its own hydrogen and expand into a red giant.
When this happens, it will almost certainly engulf Mercury and Venus in its wake, and Earth may be spared from the absorption, but only just. The fate of our planet could be on the edge.
This event provides a real-world reference for what the final stages of solar system evolution might look like.
Furthermore, if a planet seemingly catapults itself into the inward star, it suggests some worlds may die far earlier than expected, hence raising the alarm of our understanding of our own neighborhood.
A second opinion needed
Some in the scientific community have contested the “planetary suicide” explanation, arguing that the star might appear young, but actually be much older than is being speculated.
A large, dense cloud of stellar dust could be masking the red giant's true brightness, therefore misleading the telescopic instruments such as the JWST.
There are calls for additional observations to measure the star's true age, spectrum and luminosity.
Still, regardless of the exact mechanism that caused the swallowing, more events like these could help reveal whether these events are rare tragedies or cosmic norms.
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