The End of a World? Planet Burning Away at 5M Tons a Second
A whole world may come crumbling down as researchers discovered a huge nearby planet losing five million tons of material every second due to a nearby star’s high-energy radiation.
The star is giving off X-Rays 100,000 times stronger than what Earth received from the Sun, according to a new study.
Researchers are doubting the planet, called CoRoT-2b’s chances of survival, as the heat energy continues to eat away at its mass which is about three times the size of Jupiter.
Scientists discovered the planets dilemma while collecting data using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope.
“This planet is being absolutely fried by its star,” said study lead author Sebastian Schroeter, of the University of Hamburg in Germany, in a statement.
This study comes from the August issue of the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics.
According to researchers, the planet seems to be unusually inflated for a planet in its position, which they attribute to possibly be from the X-rays hitting the planet.
CoRoT-2b was first discovered by the French Space Agency’s Convection Rotation and Planetary Transits satellite around three years ago.
“Because this planet is so close to the star, it may be speeding up the star’s rotation and that could be keeping its magnetic fields active,” said the study’s co-author Stefan Czesla, “If it wasn’t for the planet, this star might have left behind the volatility of its youth millions of years ago.”
Could this be the end of a world?
The star which seems to be swallowing the planet is located 880 light years from Earth and is known as CoRoT-2a.
Researchers estimate that it is anywhere between 100 million and 300 million years old.
