Once You Eat One Planet You Can’t Stop

Recently, at a press conference at a meeting of the American Astronomical Society, Gongjie Li of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics predicted the death of two exoplanets.   “As far as we know, this is the first time two known exoplanets in a single system have a predicted ‘time of death,'” she said.  The two planets she’s talking about, Kepler-56b and Kepler-56c, are predicted to be swallowed by their star in 130 million and 155 million years, respectively.

Kepler-56 system has already turned into a red giant star and ballooned out to 4 times its normal size.  As it ages it will continue to grow.  Its tides will also become larger, pulling in the surrounding planets.

Before the death of these two Kepler-56 planets they will suffer the effects of the growing star.  The planets’ atmospheres will boil off and the planets will warp into something that looks more like a couple of eggs.

The only survivor in this system will be Kepler-56d, a gas giant that resides in a 3.3 Earth-year orbit.

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