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star eating a planet discovered by Hubble

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope has captured a doomed planet being devoured by its parent star.

The poor planet, named WASP-12, is so close to its star that it is superheated to nearly 2,800 degrees Fahrenheit and streched by enormous tidal forces. It is 40 percent bigger than Jupiter. The planet may have another 10 million years left before being completely consumed by the star.

“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,” says team leader Carole Haswell of The Open University in Great Britain.

WASP-12 was discovered by the United Kingdom’s Wide Area Search for Planets (WASP) in 2008. The hot planet is so close to the star it completes an orbit in 1.1 days.

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