These gas giant planets will be consumed by their host stars

The three planets - identified as TOI-2337b, TOI-4329b, and TOI-2669b - were first detected by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) Mission. They have masses between 0.5 and 1.7 times Jupiter's mass and sizes ranging from slightly smaller to more than 1.6 times the size of Jupiter.

A team of researchers have found that three newly-discovered gas giant exoplanets are on the edge of destruction as they will be swallowed by their host stars.

The three planets - identified as TOI-2337b, TOI-4329b, and TOI-2669b - were first detected by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) Mission. They have masses between 0.5 and 1.7 times Jupiter's mass and sizes ranging from slightly smaller to more than 1.6 times the size of Jupiter.

The team, led by Samuel Grunblatt, a postdoctoral fellow at the American Museum of Natural History and the Flatiron Institute in New York City, estimates that TOI-2337b will be consumed by its host star in less than 1 million years, sooner than any other currently known planet.

"These discoveries are crucial to understanding a new frontier in exoplanet studies: how planetary systems evolve over time. These observations offer new windows into planets nearing the end of their lives before their host stars swallow them up," said Grunblatt, who earned his PhD from the University of Hawaiʻi Institute for Astronomy (UH IfA).

After identifying the candidate planets in TESS data, Grunblatt and his team used W. M. Keck Observatory's High-Resolution Echelle Spectrometer (HIRES) on Maunakea on the Island of Hawaiʻi to confirm their existence.

The discovery and confirmation of these planets were announced by Grunblatt at an American Astronomical Society press conference on January 13, 2022. Grunblatt earned his PhD from the University of Hawaiʻi Institute for Astronomy (UH IfA).

The researchers believe that continued monitoring of these systems with NASA's TESS telescope will constrain the rate at which these giant exoplanets are spiraling into their host stars. Also, future observations of TOI-4329 with NASA's powerful James Webb Space Telescope could reveal evidence for water or carbon dioxide in the planet's atmosphere.

For more details, head over to the UH website.