![planet being consumed by sun](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/beba04_b29f22eb44884c5ab52f98f1e440b4d6~mv2.jpg/v1/fill/w_144,h_96,al_c,q_80,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,blur_2,enc_auto/beba04_b29f22eb44884c5ab52f98f1e440b4d6~mv2.jpg)
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.
This discovery offers a glimpse into the fate of our own solar system. It’s said that in about 5 billion years our Sun will puff up while turning into a red giant star, consuming the orbits of Mercury and Venus…and quite possibly, Earth. The star in the
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.