Ever Wondered What It Looks Like When A Planet Is Destroyed By Its Sun?
Scientists say that at some point in our future the earth will be destroyed by our sun but that is millions of years from now unlike the planet in the image above that circles KIC 12557548.
There is no name for the planet because, well, there wouldn’t be much point in giving it one since it is very quickly turning into space dust. The planet circles KIC 12557548 every 15 hours and from what scientists can figure out has a surface temperature of 3600 degrees Fahrenheit; and that tail you see in the image is the surface of the planet being boiled away.
This dying planet was discovered using NASA’s Kepler space telescope and gives us a glimpse into what could be our own planets future.
via Uproxx / image courtesy of NASA
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Steven Hodson Steven has been around the tech world long enough to see most of the stuff we think of cool happen before which leads to a certain bit of cynicism that has contributed to him being known as the cranky old fart of the Internet. Besides sharing some of the goodness that he finds with you here at 42x you can also find him curating some digital goodness at Winextra (tech type stuff) and Rotten Gumdrops (for your daily dose of WTF).
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