Produced by: Mohsin Shaikh
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BD+05 4868 Ab whips around its star every 30.5 hours, so close that its rocky surface turns to magma, then vaporizes into space.
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With each orbit, the planet loses a Mount Everest’s worth of mass—its life slipping away in fiery waves of molten debris.
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A staggering 9 million kilometers long, its comet-like tail made of evaporated rock is the longest ever seen from a disintegrating planet.
Located 140 light-years away in Pegasus, it’s one of the rare few planets visibly dying before our eyes—an astronomical last breath.
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Experts believe the planet will be gone in just 1–2 million years, making it one of the fastest-evaporating worlds ever detected.
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Unlike icy comets, this tail carries mineral grains—not gas or ice—leaving a glowing trail that Earth-based telescopes can still spot.
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Its small mass means weak gravity, so each loss of material makes future losses even easier—spiraling toward total disintegration.
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NASA’s TESS first spotted the strange, flickering transit pattern, prompting astronomers to chase the mystery of this blazing ghost.
NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope will soon study its vapor trail, decoding the minerals evaporating from its surface in real time.