The slow death of the planet WASP-12b

An international team of astrophysicists has determined that a massive extrasolar planet outside our solar system destroyed her own star. This phenomenon explains the unexpectedly large size of the planet WASP-12b, as well as a unique of its kind opportunity to observe how a planet enters the final stage of his life.





WASP-12b was discovered in 2008 and is one of the most enigmatic planets have been discovered outside our solar system over the past 15 years. It revolves around a star in the constellation Auriga, and has a mass that is comparable to our sun. Like most of the known exoplanets, such as Jupiter and Saturn, it is a gas giant. But unlike extrasolar planets, it rotates around its star at extremely close range, 75 times closer than Earth is to the sun. The planet is also greater than its estimated astrophysical model. Its weight is estimated at about 50% more than the mass of Jupiter and is 80% larger.

Compare the size of Jupiter to WASP-12b


The proximity of the planet to the star, is a very strong gravitational forces and thus the destruction and completely change its form into something like a ball for American football. WASP-12b is losing its mass with great speed, at this rate, the planet will be completely destroyed by the star in about ten million years.