Webb Telescope Reveals Astronomers Got It All Wrong About This Dying Planet

Astronomers using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope just gave a cosmic mystery a serious plot twist. The event in question—a sudden brightening from a star about 12,000 light-years away—was initially chalked up to the star swelling into a red giant and engulfing a nearby planet, a typical tale in some star systems. But not this time. Webb’s perceptive infrared gaze, courtesy of its MIRI and NIRSpec instruments, peered deep into the dusty aftermath with its Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI) and Near-Infrared Spectrograph (NIRSpec) and found otherwise. The star, ZTF SLRN-2020, wasn’t puffing up like a balloon—it appeared calm. Which means the planet didn’t get accidentally gobbled up in explosive stellar behavior. Instead, the distant world was doomed by a slow orbital death spiral. The new research, published today in The Astrophysical Journal, revealed that the unfortunate, roughly-Jupiter-sized planet was orbiting way too close for comfort—closer to its host star than Mercury is to ou ... Read full article.