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Discovered the first alien planet destined to fall on its star

2022-12-20T10:17:22.560Z


It could be the same end awaiting the Earth in billions of years (ANSA) The first alien planet has been discovered, destined inexorably to fall on its star as it ages: a lot of evidence of the presence of these exoplanets had already been collected, but no direct observations had yet been made. The confirmation comes from a study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters and led by the US Center for Astrophysics Harvard-Smithsonian. The end could be the same that


The first alien planet has been discovered, destined inexorably to fall on its star as it ages: a lot of evidence of the presence of these exoplanets had already been collected, but no direct observations had yet been made.

The confirmation comes from a study published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters and led by the US Center for Astrophysics Harvard-Smithsonian.

The end could be the same that awaits the Earth in billions of years, when the Sun will enter the final phase of its life cycle, and the discovery will therefore help to better understand the phenomenon and its mechanisms.


The unfortunate planet has been named Kepler-1658b, as its discovery is due to NASA's Kepler space telescope, launched in 2009: it was just the first candidate for the observations made by the telescope, but it took almost a decade to confirm its existence.

In fact, being able to detect the approach of the planet to its star required many years of analysis, starting with Kepler and then continued by the Hale telescope of the Monte Palomar Observatory in California (managed by the California Institute of Technology) and by the space telescope Tess from NASA, launched in 2018.


Kepler-1658b is a hot Jupiter that orbits very close to its star in less than 4 days, at a distance that is only one eighth of that which separates the Sun from Mercury.

Its inevitable doom, however, is approaching at an extremely slow pace, with its orbit shrinking by about 131 milliseconds per year.

The main cause of this phenomenon is the tides: the gravitational interaction between two celestial bodies distorts each other's shapes and causes the release of energy.

Depending on the distances and dimensions of the bodies involved, this process can lead to a moving away, as in the case of the Earth and the Moon, or to an approach, as in the case of the exoplanet.

Source: ansa

All tech articles on 2022-12-20

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