A rocky exoplanet too close to his star is going to pieces at 140 light years of us, leaving behind a trail of mineral debris.
The spectacular death of an exoplanet that is literally shattering has been described onAstrophysical Journal Letters by the astronomers of MIT. The scene is consuming 140 light years from us, where BD+05 4868 ABa rocky world with a mass similar to that of Mercury, but at a distance from your star 20 times less than that of Mercury from the sun, is “blushing”due to too much proximity to his hot star.
This is why the exoplanet is probably covered with magma, and leaves behind a huge tail of minerals which evaporate from the surface, comparable to the tail of the comets.
A tail to drag. The scientists noticed the presence of the SCIA in an exopiant’s routine observation campaign conducted with the Tess Telescope (Transit exoplanet survey satellite) of NASA. The mission monitors the closest stars to identify periodic oscillations of their brightness, compatible with the transit of an exoplanet.
This time, however, the signal was not typical of a compact body – a short drop in the light curve that is repeated regularly with each orbit around the star; rather, to every transit of the exoplanet, every 30.5 hoursthe brightness of the star took more time to return as before. The indication of the presence of a long tailwhich continued to hinder the light radiation and which did not always have the same shape when it passed in front of the star.
Rock powder. The tail extends for 9 million kilometersor almost half of the entire length of the orbit of the exoplanet: it is the longest ever identified for a decay exopiant. «It is unlikely that this tail contains volatile gases and ice as one would expect from a real comet: these would not survive for a long time at a distance so close by the mother star. THE Mineral granules Evapted from the planetary surface, however, they can last long enough to present such a characteristic tail »explains Marc Hon, astrophysicist of Mit.
Just in time! It is thought that the arrosthetic star The surface of BD+05 4868 AB at about 1,600 degrees ° C, making the minerals boil on its surface. Due to the weak severity of the planet, the material escapes space, where it cools down forming the long tail. At any completed orbit, the exoplanet loses an estimated amount of material equal to the one that forms the Everestand at this rate, it could completely dissolve in 1 or 2 million years.
Having caught him in the latter breath of life has been a stroke of luck that the authors of the study intend to take advantage of: During the summer, MIT scientists will have an observation window of the exoplanet with the James Webb Space Telescope, which thanks to the analyzes in the infrared could understand which minerals the celestial body is composed.
