小行星可以被吞掉,以前听说过这种情况会发生,可是还没有看到过真实的图片,奇妙的太空!同学们有机会的话可以用天文望远镜好好看下咯!
7 l1 l0 k* B% b; G Scientists used Hubble data to create an image of the planet being swallowed The Hubble Space Telescope has captured evidence of a Sun-like star "eating" a nearby planet.
+ D% x( J6 S5 a+ F2 G* v Astronomers knew that stars were capable of swallowing planets in orbit around them, but this is the first time the event has been "seen" so clearly.% y5 t0 L$ J% n/ L9 r& `
Although the planet was too far away for Hubble to photograph, scientists have created an image of it, based on analysis of the telescope's data.
% _4 K# A2 Q5 Q' M% N+ E- m The discovery was published in the The Astrophysical Journal Letters. % d) X" g: i: A
The researchers say the planet, which is called Wasp-12b, may only have another 10 million years left before it is completely devoured.
# M2 w j! O2 ?, V! i' S It is so close to its star that it completes an orbit in 1.1 Earth days and is superheated to more than 1,500C.2 E, r" \, J& A4 |# Z4 |
Because of this proximity, the planet's atmosphere has ballooned to nearly three times the radius of Jupiter and is spilling material on to the star.
$ J. s0 P& w7 C, v& l# `1 \$ j Carole Haswell from the UK's Open University led the research team. She explained: "We see a huge cloud of material around the planet which is escaping and will be captured by the star."
( E' |3 T& x1 j7 L' a2 g; V Hubble's detection of the cloud enabled scientists to draw conclusions about how it was generated.
b: i8 W* q# r; ^7 M! P: K$ O- J3 | Dr Haswell said: "We have identified chemical elements never before seen on planets outside our own Solar System."
5 ]$ D. N' p$ D: y4 Q4 } Wasp-12 is a dwarf star located approximately 600 light-years away in the constellation Auriga.
+ ?( N4 p3 Y2 S$ O' H$ ]3 @! r The exoplanet was first discovered by the UK's Wide Area Search for Planets (Wasp) in 2008. |