James Webb's Space Lookout recently observed a cosmic spectacle: a star that "eats" its planet.

This astronomical event was named "ZTF SLRN-2020",就發生在我們的銀河系中，距離地球大約1.2萬光年。

In fact, as early as 2020, astronomers observed that the star suddenly burst into a dazzling flash of visible light.

At the time, it was speculated that it expanded into a red giant at the end of its life, thus engulfing nearby planets. The same will be true of our solar future.

However, according to the latest mid-infrared and near-infrared observations from the Webb telescope, astronomers found that it did not emit a large amount of infrared light, which obviously did not meet the characteristics of red giant star explosions.

Astronomers believe thatIn this planetary system, there would have been a planet the size of Jupiter orbiting the star at an extremely close distance, even closer than Mercury and the Sun.

Over time, under the strong gravitational pull of the star, the planet gradually decays in its orbit, gets closer and closer to the star, and finally falls on top of the star, where it is completely swallowed and reduced to nothing in a flash of light.

The whole process may take less than a few months, and on a cosmic scale, it is a blink of an eye.