Latest news with #RyanLau
Yahoo
20-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
James Webb Spots Disturbing Sight: Entire Planet Sinking Into Star
Astronomers using the James Webb Space Telescope appear to have made the first-ever direct observation of a star swallowing a planet. Clearly the stellar host was the culprit of this gruesome crime. Acts of "planetary engulfment" occur when a star enters its red giant stage — as our own Sun is fated to do — in a period near the end of its stellar evolution in which it slowly cools and puffs outward, dooming any world it eventually touches. But the astronomer's new study published in The Astrophysical Journal suggests otherwise. They discovered signs that it was actually the ill-fated planet that charged headlong into its own star, in an act of planetary suicide. "Because this is such a novel event, we didn't quite know what to expect when we decided to point this telescope in its direction," said lead author Ryan Lau, an astronomer at the NSF NOIRLab in Arizona, in a statement about the work. Residing some 12,000 light years away, researchers first spotted signs of the star, ZTF SLRN-2020, engulfing a planet in 2023. The telltale was a bright flash of light that betrayed the presence of dust, likely the remains of a disemboweled quondam world. What's more, early evidence suggested that the star was like our Sun, and was entering into its red giant stage. It was coming together. By all accounts, they had caught ZTF SLRN-2020 red handed, and decided to get a second look with the James Webb. "If this was the first directly detected planetary engulfment event, what better target is there to point at?" Lau told Science. Using the orbital observatory's Mid-Infrared Instrument, though, they made a surprising discovery. The star was simply not bright enough to be a red giant, blowing the case wide open. If it wasn't a red giant, then it couldn't have puffed outward to swallow anything. Instead, the team believes that the planet was a Jupiter-sized world that orbited close to the star to begin with, perhaps even closer than Mercury orbits our Sun. Disruptions in the tidal forces between the two bodies led the planet to be nudged inward over millions of years. "The planet eventually started to graze the star's atmosphere," said coauthor Morgan MacLeod, a Harvard astrophysicist, in the statement. "Then it was a runaway process of falling in faster from that moment." As it met its face, the planet took a chunk out of its star, too, blasting some of its outer layers into space with the impact. Eventually, the ejecta cooled into a ring of cold dust encircling the star. But the bloodstain pattern doesn't quite add up. In another twist, the researchers also found another circumstellar ring of hot molecular gas even closer to the star, resembling a planet-forming region more than it does the vestiges of a vaporized world. In any case, there's a lot for the astronomers to chew on. Is this what the crime scene of a planetary engulfment typically looks like? And is this a more common form of demise than the red giant hypothesis? "This is truly the precipice of studying these events. This is the only one we've observed in action, and this is the best detection of the aftermath after things have settled back down," Lau said in the statement. "We hope this is just the start of our sample." More on Webb discoveries: Fearless James Webb Telescope Stares Down "City Killer" Asteroid That Had Been Feared to Strike Earth
Yahoo
14-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Astroforensics Reveals Surprise Twist in Death of Planet Swallowed by Star
A surprise twist has emerged in the tale of an exoplanet that was devoured by its star. Rather than the star expanding to engulf the poor defenseless world, the world itself was complicit in its demise, falling in towards the star on a spiraling orbit of doom. The finding, revealed through observations from JWST, offers some insight into the evolution of planetary systems, and the wild ways they can behave. "Because this is such a novel event, we didn't quite know what to expect when we decided to point this telescope in its direction," says astronomer Ryan Lau of NOIRLab in the US. "With its high-resolution look in the infrared, we are learning valuable insights about the final fates of planetary systems, possibly including our own." The event first caught the attention of astronomers in 2020, when a star 12,000 light-years away suddenly blazed with light, brightening by a factor of 100 before rapidly fading again. By carefully analyzing all the possibilities, scientists concluded that the event, named ZTF SLRN-2020, could only be the result of a star scarfing down one of its exoplanets. This is a Big Deal. It was the first time astronomers had observed a star devouring one of its orbiting worlds, opening what we thought was a window into the final stages of the life of a planetary system as a Sun-like star puffs up into a red giant and engulfs the exoplanets orbiting it. "We are seeing the future of the Earth," astrophysicist Kishalay De of MIT's Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research said at the time. Only, well, that turns out not to have been the case at all. Lau and his colleagues turned JWST's mid-infrared and near-infrared instruments to the star to reveal a completely different story. When a star is just living its life, fusing atoms in its core to make heavier elements, it exists on the main sequence stage of a star's lifetime. When a Sun-like star starts to run out of its fuel, it puffs up into a red giant. It becomes hotter, brighter, larger: an unstable giant on the brink of death. Any worlds within range would be toast; the Sun, scientists believe, might puff up as far as the orbit of Mars when it reaches the red giant phase in a few billion years. However, when looking at the star responsible for ZTF SLRN-2020, JWST's mid-infrared instrument (MIRI) found that this star was nowhere near as bright as it should be if it was at the red giant phase. Rather, its brightness was consistent with a K-type star around 70 percent of the mass of the Sun, an orange dwarf with a main sequence lifespan up to 70 billion years. In other words, it's a smallish, dimmish, coolish star that's still comfortably sitting on the main sequence. There's no puffing, there has been no puffing, and there will be no puffing for a long time. Which means that the exoplanet had to have died some other way. There's a category of exoplanets out there that can explain it. A surprising number of 'hot Jupiters' exist in the Milky Way. These are Jupiter-sized worlds that are orbiting their stars extremely closely – too close to have been able to form there. We have even seen hot Jupiters on such close orbits that they are evaporating, creating long tails of material as they whirl around their star. This could be one of the earliest stages of devourment: the exoplanet loses mass, its orbit decays further, and it ultimately slams into the star and dies. This is what Lau and his colleagues think happened with ZTF SLRN-2020. A Jupiter-sized world was on a close orbit, closer than that of Mercury, that gradually decayed over millions of years, until it reached the point of total devastation. "The planet eventually started to graze the star's atmosphere. Then it was a runaway process of falling in faster from that moment," says astronomer Morgan MacLeod of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "The planet, as it's falling in, started to sort of smear around the star." Eventually, it disappeared into the star, leaving behind a puff of gas that cooled into cold molecular gas. Observations with NIRSpec revealed something unexpected, though. Closer to the star than the cool gas was a cloud of hot molecular gas that contained molecules such as carbon monoxide and phosphine. The carbon monoxide, in particular, was interesting: it bore a powerful resemblance to the carbon monoxide seen in the planet-forming disks of dust that surround baby stars. What its presence at a planetary death means remains to be studied. "This is truly the precipice of studying these events. This is the only one we've observed in action, and this is the best detection of the aftermath after things have settled back down," Lau says. "We hope this is just the start of our sample." The research has been published in The Astrophysical Journal. Striking Evidence of Water Imbalance on The Moon Hints at a Collision 21 Heartwarming Images Reveal The Human Side of Life in Space 'Hidden Galaxies' Exposed by Deep Sky Map Could Solve Energy Mystery
Yahoo
12-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
Telescope reveals star-planet collision unfolded differently than scientists first thought
Examination of data from Nasa's James Webb Space Telescope has uncovered a surprising new twist in the narrative of a star believed to have engulfed a planet. According to the space agency, data suggests that instead of the star expanding to consume the body, the planet's orbit gradually decayed, bringing it closer to the giant ball of gas. The event, first observed by astronomers in 2020, was hailed as the first-ever witnessed instance of a planet being swallowed by its host star. However, through Webb Telescope observations, it is believed that the planet slowly spiraled inward, causing its eventual destruction. "Because this is such a novel event, we didn't quite know what to expect when we decided to point this telescope in its direction," Ryan Lau, lead author of the study and astronomer at the National Science Foundation National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory, said in a statement. "With its high-resolution look in the infrared, we are learning valuable insights about the final fates of planetary systems, possibly including our own." Antarctica's 'Doomsday Glacier' Is Melting Away Differently Than Scientists First Thought The star is located about 12,000 light-years from Earth in the Milky Way, and the planet is believed to have been roughly the size of Jupiter. Over millions of years, the planet is thought to have gradually spiraled closer to the star, ultimately leading to its catastrophic demise. "The planet eventually started to graze the star's atmosphere. Then it was a runaway process of falling in faster from that moment," Morgan MacLeod, a member of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, stated. "The planet, as it's falling in, started to sort of smear around the star." In the planet's final moments, it's believed that a cloud of dust formed - an aftermath captured by Webb's high-tech equipment. The discovery raises questions about the processes behind such violent cosmic events - and what might one day happen to Earth and other nearby planets. According to astronomers, a collision between Earth and the Sun isn't expected anytime soon. In fact, the planet is slowly moving away from the giant star. Earth is currently drifting away from the Sun at a rate of less than an inch per year, due to the star gradually losing mass. In about 5 billion years or so, the Sun will run out of fuel and begin to expand, potentially allowing Earth to spiral into it - a scenario not unlike the event observed 12,000 light-years away. See The Objects Humans Left Behind On The Moon Space experts say they were only able to make this discovery thanks to the $10 billion James Webb Space Telescope, which launched in 2021. NASA anticipates that the telescope will far exceed its planned 10-year lifespan and continue to revolutionize our understanding of the article source: Telescope reveals star-planet collision unfolded differently than scientists first thought
Ammon
12-04-2025
- Science
- Ammon
Webb telescope documents alien planet's death plunge into a star
Ammon News - In May 2020, astronomers for the first time observed a planet getting swallowed by its host star. Based on the data at the time, they believed the planet met its doom as the star puffed up late in its lifespan, becoming what is called a red giant. New observations by the James Webb Space Telescope - sort of a postmortem examination - indicate that the planet's demise happened differently than initially thought. Instead of the star coming to the planet, it appears the planet came to the star, with disastrous consequences - a death plunge after an erosion of this alien world's orbit over time, researchers said. The end was quite dramatic, as evidenced by the aftermath documented by Webb. The orbiting telescope, which was launched in 2021 and became operational in 2022, observed hot gas likely forming a ring around the star following the event and an expanding cloud of cooler dust enveloping the scene. "We do know that there is a good amount of material from the star that gets expelled as the planet goes through its death plunge. The after-the-fact evidence is this dusty leftover material that was ejected from the host star," said astronomer Ryan Lau of the U.S. National Science Foundation's NOIRLab, lead author of the study published in the Astrophysical Journal. Reuters
Yahoo
11-04-2025
- Science
- Yahoo
NASA's autopsy of planet swallowed by a star gives astronomers a surprise
When many stars reach billions of years in age and run out of fuel, they become dying stars known as red giants. The stars expand and can engulf nearby planets, effectively incinerating them. In approximately five billion years, Earth's own sun will turn into a red giant and engulf planets, including our blue marble. While astronomers have identified many of these red giant stars, it was only recently that the process of eating a planet had been directly observed. Astronomers have identified many red giant stars and suspected that in some cases they consume nearby planets, but the phenomenon had never been directly observed before. In 2023, scientists discovered a star nearing the end of its life had swelled and absorbed a planet that is likely about the size of Jupiter. Now, with additional observations from the James Webb Space Telescope, they say there's been a 'surprising twist.' Instead of eating the planet, Webb's observations show the planet's orbit shrank over millions of years, pulling the celestial body closer to its demise until it was fully engulfed. 'Because this is such a novel event, we didn't quite know what to expect when we decided to point this telescope in its direction,' Ryan Lau, an astronomer at the National Science Foundation National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory in Tucson, Arizona, said in a statement. 'With its high-resolution look in the infrared, we are learning valuable insights about the final fates of planetary systems, possibly including our own.' Lau is the lead author of a new paper published Thursday in The Astrophysical Journal. Using the telescope's Mid-Infrared Instrument and Near-Infrared Spectrograph, the researchers examined the Milky Way galaxy scene about 12,000 light-years away from Earth. While the sun had been recognized as more like our sun, a measurement from the Mid-Infrared Instrument found the star was not as bright as it should have been if it had evolved into a red giant. The finding indicated to researchers that there was no swelling to engulf the planet, as once believed. 'The planet eventually started to graze the star's atmosphere. Then it was a runaway process of falling in faster from that moment,' team member Morgan MacLeod of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, explained. 'The planet, as it's falling in, started to sort of smear around the star.' The planet would have blasted gas away from the outer layers of the star. The Near-Infrared Spectrograph revealed a hot disk of molecular gas surrounding the star, where carbon monoxide was detected. 'With such a transformative telescope like Webb, it was hard for me to have any expectations of what we'd find in the immediate surroundings of the star,' said Vassar College's Colette Salyk, an exoplanet researcher and a co-author of the new paper. 'I will say, I could not have expected seeing what has the characteristics of a planet-forming region, even though planets are not forming here, in the aftermath of an engulfment.'
