London - UPI
A distant planet is being devoured by its own sun with the cataclysmic event taking place invisibly behind a veil absorbing all light, British astronomers say.
Researchers with Britain\'s Wide Angle Search for Planets consortium first discovered the planet WASP-12 b in 2008, orbiting extremely close to its parent star, Britain\'s Open University reported Tuesday.
The distance between the star and planet is so small that a superheated gas cloud has been boiled off the planet, some of which is feeding the star while some escapes into space, creating a veil or shroud that makes observation difficult by blocking many wavelengths of light.
Astronomers said a structure like this had never before been observed around a star.
\"It\'s as though a veil has been drawn over the planet\'s demise,\" the Open University\'s Carole Haswell said.
The new observations were made with the Hubble Space Telescope using near-ultraviolet light.