Are We Watching a Planet Disintegrate?

Issued by S&T

In their search for small exoplanets orbiting close to their stars, scientists may have discovered a nearby planet that is disintegrating.

Among the wealth of exoplanets we’ve discovered beyond our solar system, some are temperate, some less so. New observations have now revealed what may be a particularly inhospitable environment: a planet literally disintegrating as it orbits its host.

PEERING THROUGH THE SHROUD

With initial observations in 2015, the Dispersed Matter Planet Project (DMPP) promised an innovative approach to hunting for exoplanets closely orbiting their hosts. Using high-cadence, high-precision radial velocity measurements, the project targets bright nearby stars that shows signatures of being shrouded in hot circumstellar gas. By looking for tiny radial-velocity wiggles in the star’s signal, the DMPP team hopes to detect small planets that are losing mass as they orbit close to their hot hosts.

https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-news/are-we-watching-a-planet-disintegrate/