Webb telescope documents alien planet's death plunge into a star

The James Webb Space Telescope reveals that planets may spiral into their stars, rather than being swallowed by expanding red giants. This changes our understanding of planetary destruction. By REUTERS APRIL 13, 2025 09:27 In May 2020, astronomers for the first time observed a planet getting swallowed by its host star. Based on the data at the time, they believed the planet met its doom as the star puffed up late in its lifespan, becoming what is called a red giant.New observations by the James Webb Space Telescope - sort of a postmortem examination - indicate that the planet's demise happened differently than initially thought. Instead of the star coming to the planet, it appears the planet came to the star, with disastrous consequences - a death plunge after an erosion of this alien world's orbit over time, researchers said.The end was quite dramatic, as evidenced by the aftermath documented by Webb. The orbiting telescope, which was launched in 2021 and became operational in 2022, o...