Astronomers just saw something remarkable for the very first time

Astronomers caught a glimpse of what could be the eventual fate of our world after they witnessed a distant planet being devoured by its host star somewhere in the Milky Way. 

There are only a few ways planets can disappear from our universe and one of the most terrifying scenarios is their eventual destruction at the hands of their host star's collapse.

Every star has its own best-before date and NASA's website on stars explains that they all eventually run out of the hydrogen gas needed to fuel their cores and either eject their outer layers or explode into space. 

Luckily, the Earth isn’t scheduled to be engulfed by the Sun for at least another five billion years according to The Telegraph, but now we know what that destruction looks like.

For the first time in history, researchers have captured the moment a dying star gobbled up one of its orbiting planets while growing through the process of its own demise. 

According to the Washington Post, the planet was roughly the same size as Jupiter and spiraled around the dying star 1000 times its size until it was finally fully engulfed. 

The whole process took roughly ten days to play out and during that time the star slowly grew bigger and brighter and then quickly faded back to normal after eating the planet. 

The researchers recorded their discovery and its observations in a study published in the journal Nature, noting that we should be able to view the phenomena far more often.

“We are seeing the future of the Earth,” the study’s lead author Dr. Kishalay De said according to reporting from the Washington Post’s Joe Pinkerstone, who provided the story's details. 

“If some other civilization was observing us from 10,000 light years away while the Sun was engulfing the Earth, they would see the sun suddenly brighten as it ejects some material, then form dust around it, before settling back to what it was,” Dr. De added. 

According to The Guardian, Dr. De first realized he found something in the sky when he saw an irregular burst of light in observations taken at the Zwicky Transient Facility. 

The light was eventually traced back to a star 12,000 light years away from Earth and researchers initially thought they were onto a stellar merger, not planetary destruction. 

After piecing together follow-up infrared data from other observatories as well as more data from NASA’s Neowise telescope, the researchers realized what they had captured.

“Like a lot of discoveries in science, this happened to be an accidental discovery that really opened our eyes to a new type of phenomenon,” Dr. De said, adding that this unknown planet's destruction by its own star would also “be the final fate of Earth.”

While most astronomers agree that the Earth will be engulfed by the Sun in the distant future, there are those Astrophysicists Enrico Ramirez-Ruiz who say we just don’t have enough data to conclusively support the claim. 

In an email exchange with The Washington Post, Ramirez-Ruiz said Earth’s orbital position brought into question whether it would be engulfed by the Sun. But the Astrophysicist did say the new study will help us better understand the phenomenon. 

“I think there's something pretty remarkable about these results that speaks to the transience of our existence,” said Ryan Lau, a co-author of the study. 

“After the billions of years that span the lifetime of our Solar System, our own end stages will likely conclude in a final flash that lasts only a few months,” Lau added.