{"id":25931,"date":"2025-04-23T12:33:01","date_gmt":"2025-04-23T06:48:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/?p=25931"},"modified":"2025-04-23T12:33:05","modified_gmt":"2025-04-23T06:48:05","slug":"astronomers-discover-a-planet-thats-rapidly-disintegrating-producing-a-comet-like-tail","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/astronomers-discover-a-planet-thats-rapidly-disintegrating-producing-a-comet-like-tail\/","title":{"rendered":"Astronomers discover a planet that\u2019s rapidly disintegrating, producing a comet-like tail"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The small and rocky lava world sheds an amount of material equivalent to the mass of Mount Everest every 30.5 hours.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n

Jennifer Chu<\/p><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. — MIT astronomers have discovered a planet some 140 light-years from Earth that is rapidly crumbling to pieces. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The disintegrating world is about the mass of Mercury, although it circles about 20 times closer to its star than Mercury does to the sun, completing an orbit every 30.5 hours. At such proximity to its star, the planet is likely covered in magma that is boiling off into space. As the roasting planet whizzes around its star, it is shedding an enormous amount of surface minerals and effectively evaporating away.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The astronomers spotted the planet using NASA\u2019s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), an MIT-led mission that monitors the nearest stars for transits, or periodic dips in starlight that could be signs of orbiting exoplanets. The signal that tipped the astronomers off was a peculiar transit, with a dip that fluctuated in depth every orbit. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The scientists confirmed that the signal is of a tightly orbiting rocky planet that is trailing a long, comet-like tail of debris. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe extent of the tail is gargantuan, stretching up to 9 million kilometers long, or roughly half of the planet\u2019s entire orbit,\u201d says Marc Hon, a postdoc in MIT\u2019s Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It appears that the planet is disintegrating at a dramatic rate, shedding an amount of material equivalent to one Mount Everest each time it orbits its star. At this pace, given its small mass, the researchers predict that the planet may completely disintegrate in about 1 million to 2 million years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe got lucky with catching it exactly when it\u2019s really going away,\u201d says Avi Shporer, a collaborator on the discovery who is also at the TESS Science Office. \u201cIt\u2019s like on its last breath.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hon and Shporer, along with their colleagues, will publish their results in the\u00a0Astrophysical Journal Letters.<\/em>\u00a0 Their MIT co-authors include Saul Rappaport, Andrew Vanderburg, Jeroen Audenaert, William Fong, Jack Haviland, Katharine Hesse, Daniel Muthukrishna, Glen Petitpas, Ellie Schmelzer, Sara Seager, and George Ricker, along with collaborators from multiple other institutions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Roasting away<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new planet, which scientists have tagged as BD+05 4868 Ab, was detected almost by happenstance. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe weren\u2019t looking for this kind of planet,\u201d Hon says. \u201cWe were doing the typical planet vetting, and I happened to spot this signal that appeared very unusual.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The typical signal of an orbiting exoplanet looks like a brief dip in a light curve, which repeats regularly, indicating that a compact body such as a planet is briefly passing in front of, and temporarily blocking, the light from its host star. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This typical pattern was unlike what Hon and his colleagues detected from the host star BD+05 4868 A, located in the constellation of Pegasus. Though a transit appeared every 30.5 hours, the brightness took much longer to return to normal, suggesting a long trailing structure still blocking starlight. Even more intriguing, the depth of the dip changed with each orbit, suggesting that whatever was passing in front of the star wasn\u2019t always the same shape or blocking the same amount of light. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe shape of the transit is typical of a comet with a long tail,\u201d Hon explains. \u201cExcept that it\u2019s unlikely that this tail contains volatile gases and ice as expected from a real comet \u2014 these would not survive long at such close proximity to the host star. Mineral grains evaporated from the planetary surface, however, can linger long enough to present such a distinctive tail.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given its proximity to its star, the team estimates that the planet is roasting at around 1,600 degrees Celsius, or close to 3,000 degrees Fahrenheit. As the star roasts the planet, any minerals on its surface are likely boiling away and escaping into space, where they cool into a long and dusty tail. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The dramatic demise of this planet is a consequence of its low mass, which is between that of Mercury and the Moon. More massive terrestrial planets like the Earth have a stronger gravitational pull and therefore can hold onto their atmospheres. For BD+05 4868 Ab, the researchers suspect there is very little gravity to hold the planet together.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThis is a very tiny object, with very weak gravity, so it easily loses a lot of mass, which then further weakens its gravity, so it loses even more mass,\u201d Shporer explains. \u201cIt\u2019s a runaway process, and it\u2019s only getting worse and worse for the planet.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mineral trail<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of the nearly 6,000 planets that astronomers have discovered to date, scientists know of only three other disintegrating planets beyond our solar system. Each of these crumbling worlds were spotted over 10 years ago using data from NASA\u2019s Kepler Space Telescope. All three planets were spotted with similar comet-like tails. BD+05 4868 Ab has the longest tail and the deepest transits out of the four known disintegrating planets to date. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat implies that its evaporation is the most catastrophic, and it will disappear much faster than the other planets,\u201d Hon explains. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The planet\u2019s host star is relatively close, and thus brighter than the stars hosting the other three disintegrating planets, making this system ideal for further observations using NASA\u2019s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), which can help determine the mineral makeup of the dust tail by identifying which colors of infrared light it absorbs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This summer, Hon and graduate student Nicholas Tusay from Penn State University will lead observations of BD+05 4868 Ab using JWST. \u201cThis will be a unique opportunity to directly measure the interior composition of a rocky planet, which may tell us a lot about the diversity and potential habitability of terrestrial planets outside our solar system,\u201d Hon says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The researchers will also look through TESS data for signs of other disintegrating worlds.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cSometimes with the food comes the appetite, and we are now trying to initiate the search for exactly these kinds of objects,\u201d Shporer says. \u201cThese are weird objects, and the shape of the signal changes over time, which is something that\u2019s difficult for us to find. But it\u2019s something we\u2019re actively working on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This work was supported, in part, by NASA. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

MIT astronomers have discovered a planet some 140 light-years from Earth that is rapidly crumbling to pieces.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25932,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25931","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-space-news"],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/MIT-Disintegrate-Planet-01-press_0.jpg",1000,661,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/MIT-Disintegrate-Planet-01-press_0-200x200.jpg",200,200,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/MIT-Disintegrate-Planet-01-press_0-605x400.jpg",605,400,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/MIT-Disintegrate-Planet-01-press_0-768x508.jpg",750,496,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/MIT-Disintegrate-Planet-01-press_0-675x446.jpg",675,446,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/MIT-Disintegrate-Planet-01-press_0.jpg",1000,661,false],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/MIT-Disintegrate-Planet-01-press_0.jpg",1000,661,false],"ultp_layout_landscape_large":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/MIT-Disintegrate-Planet-01-press_0.jpg",1000,661,false],"ultp_layout_landscape":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/MIT-Disintegrate-Planet-01-press_0-870x570.jpg",870,570,true],"ultp_layout_portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/MIT-Disintegrate-Planet-01-press_0-600x661.jpg",600,661,true],"ultp_layout_square":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/MIT-Disintegrate-Planet-01-press_0-600x600.jpg",600,600,true],"newspaper-x-single-post":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/MIT-Disintegrate-Planet-01-press_0-760x490.jpg",760,490,true],"newspaper-x-recent-post-big":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/MIT-Disintegrate-Planet-01-press_0-550x360.jpg",550,360,true],"newspaper-x-recent-post-list-image":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/MIT-Disintegrate-Planet-01-press_0-95x65.jpg",95,65,true],"web-stories-poster-portrait":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/MIT-Disintegrate-Planet-01-press_0.jpg",640,423,false],"web-stories-publisher-logo":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/MIT-Disintegrate-Planet-01-press_0.jpg",96,63,false],"web-stories-thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/MIT-Disintegrate-Planet-01-press_0.jpg",150,99,false]},"author_info":{"info":["Jennifer Chu"]},"category_info":"Space\/ AstroPhysics<\/a>","tag_info":"Space\/ AstroPhysics","comment_count":"0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25931"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25933,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25931\/revisions\/25933"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25932"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25931"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.revoscience.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}