Astronomers observed a small, rocky planet that rotates dangerously near its star and dissolved as its surface is ventilated due to high temperature, leaving behind a 9 million -kilometer -long fundraiser, reminiscent of a comet.

Since the 1990s, about 5,800 planets have been discovered outside our solar system, the so -called exoplanets. Of these, only four have been observed to decompose in orbit, such as him. The planet is the closest to the four to our solar system and gives scientists a unique opportunity to find out what is happening to these condemned worlds.

Researchers noticed the planet BD+05 4868 AB While gradually becomes dust, leaving, with every tour around his star, a quantity of material equal to the volume of Mount Everest. Tail of dust leaves behind it covers the star semicircle in length

The planet is estimated to have a size somewhere between our Hermes and her Moon. It is located in the constellation of Pegasus and is about 140 years of light from Earth. One year of light is the distance that covers light within one year, ie 9.5 trillion kilometers.

The star of BD+05 4868 AB is an orange dwarf. It is smaller, colder and not as brilliant as the sun: it has about 70% of the mass and the diameter of the sun and about 20% of its brightness. The planet makes a complete rotation around it every 30.5 hours, about 20 times smaller than that of Mercury from the sun.

On the surface of the planet it is estimated that the temperature reaches 1,600 degrees Celsius due to its proximity to the star. As a result, the surface has already been converted into magma, into a melted rock.

“We expect the planet to become dust within the next one million years or somewhere there,” said Mark Hon, a postdoctoral researcher at the Kivel Institute of Astrophysics and Space Research by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Hon was the key author of the study published today in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

“On a cosmic scale, this period is considered devastatingly small. Dissolution is a galloping process. The more material on the planet is triggered, the faster the dissolution process becomes, “he explained.

The disappearance, when found in space, solidifies and forms powder molecules of various sizes, removed from the planet. Hon noted that scientists are not yet aware of the chemical composition of the “tail”.

Researchers identified BD+05 4868 thanks to its TESS telescope Nasato observe exoplanets.

It is not clear at the moment how this planet has come to wander so close to his star. It is probably initially in another trajectory, which changed due to the gravitational effect of a foreign body, perhaps another planet, Hon explained.

Researchers are planning to continue observing the planet in the coming months, using NASA’s James Webb telescope to study the composition of the tail material, which could give them some information on the chemical composition of the rocky exoplanets. In the search for life in other solar systems, scientists focus on rocky exoplanets who rotate orbit around their star in the so -called “Chrysomallousa Zone” or habitable zone – that is, at a distance where water can be wet in their surface.

“The tail is expected to contain ores that have been elapsed from the surface or interior of the planet. It could even be material from its core. It is a huge challenge to learn about the interior of the planets. It is even difficult for planets in our own solar system. But BD+05 4868 AB will allow us to directly measure the composition of a planet similar to Earth outside our own solar system. This is definitely an excellent opportunity to learn the geology of the exoplanets and to understand the variety and the possible ability to inhabit the rocky worlds outside our solar system, “Hon said.