Sad Distant Planet Being Eaten By Its Own Sun!

The latest exciting space drama to come via the Hubble Telescope takes place 600 light years from earth in a constellation called Auriga. There, a huge planet called Wasp 12b is being eaten by its sun, the dwarf star Wasp 12. (The entities are so named not just because “wasp” is a such an awesome word, but for the British project, the Wide Area Search for Planets, through which they were discovered in 2008.) Apparently, the helpless planet is being drawn into tighter and tighter orbit.

It now completes the equivalent or our year-long trip every 26 hours, and its temperature is 2,250 degrees Celsius. It’s probably a dry heat. But still, the planet seems doomed-every seven years, it loses as much mass as is contained in all the earth’s oceans. Unless there’s a brave young astronomer like Norrin Radd on Wasp 12b who can convince the sun to spare his home in return for a promise to ride a silver surfboard around the Universe, searching for more planets to satisfy the Devourer of World’s horrible, god-like hunger. But that hardly seems realistic.

This would be more disturbing if we hadn’t recently slathered our own planet in enough disgusting oil to spoil the appetite of any sun or comic-book super villain.

Anyway, here’s a cool picture of what’s happening created by scientists at the U.K.’s Open University based on their analysis of the Hubble’s data.