From inching closer to what could have kickstarted the building blocks of life on Earth to finally knowing why our life ‘flashes’ before our eyes near death, this week’s stories have shed some interesting insights into the field of science. Read the latest discoveries and findings here.
A bloated star swallows a Jupiter-sized planet
Scientists for the first time have observed a star, bloated in its old age, swallowing a Jupiter-like planet, then expelling some material into space in an energetic belch. The planet in this research was a type called a “hot Jupiter” - a gas giant resembling our solar system’s biggest world but with an orbit much tighter to its star. This planet, perhaps a few times bigger than Jupiter, orbited its star in less than a day at a distance closer than Mercury, our innermost planet, orbits the sun. Mercury, Venus and finally Earth, our solar system’s three innermost planets, will meet this destiny as the sun evolves through its red giant phase in about 5 billion years
