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 SL ... Read full article.