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Join communications specialist Beth Johnson for a live interview with astrophysicist Marc Hon (MIT), lead author of a new study revealing one of the most extreme exoplanets ever discovered — a small, rocky world that's literally disintegrating as it orbits its star.
BD+05 4868 b is a Mercury-sized planet just 140 light-years away that’s orbiting so close to its star, it’s roasting at around 1650°C. The heat is intense enough to vaporize the planet’s rocky surface, creating a massive comet-like tail of mineral dust stretching millions of kilometers across space. This rare discovery — only the fourth known disintegrating planet — offers scientists an unprecedented opportunity to study the geology of an alien world, and upcoming JWST observations could even reveal the chemical makeup of its interior.
Press release: https://news.mit.edu/2025/astronomers-discover-planet-thats-rapidly-disintegrating-producing-comet-tail-0422
Paper: https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/2041-8213/adbf21
