Hubble discovers planet being ‘eaten’ by its sun

The Hubble Space Telescope has captured data that shows, for the first time, the death throes of a planet which is gradually being 'eaten' by the sun around which it orbits.
 
The doomed planet is 600 light years away from earth and is being devoured by the yellow dwarf star WASP-12, part of the Auriga constellation.
 
The planet is now so close to the star that it completes an orbit in just 1.1 days. It has been superheated to 2,800 degrees fahrenheit, more than 1,500 Celsius, and has been stretched into the shape of a rugby ball by the proximity of the star. The enormous heat has caused the planet's atmosphere to balloon to three times the size of Jupiter and it is gradually disintegrating as it spills matter into the star.
 
However, the end is not quite nigh for the unfortunate planet, which was first spotted in 2008. Nasa says that it will take another 10 million years for it to be completely destroyed by the star.
 
Scientists say that although matter exchange between two stellar objects has been seen in nearby binary star systems – systems with two suns – this is the first time that they have been able to observe the process when it involves a planet.
 
Carole Haswell of the Open University said: "We see a huge cloud of material around the planet, which is escaping and will be captured by the star. We have identified chemical elements never before seen on planets outside our own solar system."
 
Hubble's observations have also proved several theories about what happens when planets approach stars. The idea that a planet would become stretched by the gravitational forces at work and the suggestion that its atmosphere would expand because of the heat have both been verified.
 
Unfortunately for scientists, the events are unfolding too far away from the telescope for it to be possible to photograph them. Instead, a device called a Cosmic Origins Spectrograph has been recording the data that has allowed Nasa to release an artist's impression (above). ·