3 newly discovered worlds risk doom orbiting too close to dying stars - Space.com

The planets risk being swallowed up by the stars they orbit.

"These planets are in such extreme places that actually less than 10 years ago, no one thought that they actually existed," Samuel Grunblatt, lead author of the study and a postdoctoral fellow at the American Museum of Natural History, said during a news conference held by the American Astronomical Society on Thursday (Jan. 13).

"These observations offer new windows into planets nearing the end of their lives, before their host stars swallow them up.".

In turn, altering the planets' orbit around a parent star could destabilize an entire planetary system or cause the planets to collide as they get closer to each other.

In addition, as the planets spiral in toward their host stars, they are heated, which can trigger atmospheric changes, such as swelling.

— 7 ways to discover alien planets.

NASA's recently-launched James Webb Space Telescope could also help identify the composition of the planets' atmospheres and, in turn, where the planets formed and how they ended up in such a close-knit orbit around their parent star. .

"The rapid changes of the star combined with the short orbital periods of these planets imply these planets should be consumed by their host stars faster than almost any other known planets," Grunblatt said during the news conference.

"Continuing the study of these systems could tell us how giant planets move throughout their lives, how that affects their smaller neighbors and then puffs them up during a fiery death dive into their host stars.".