This doomed alien planet has a year that lasts just 16 hours — it's only getting faster

I note from the article. "In our lifetime, we will not see the planet fall into its star," he said. "But give it another 10 million years, and this planet might not be there."

Hot Jupiters are very interesting along with many other exoplanets reported now. An exoplanet with 0.5 Jupiter mass, host star with 0.5 solar mass, and a=0.10 au and e=0, completes an orbit in 16.33 days so this report shows a much closer hot jupiter and very short orbital period. Using my example, a hot jupiter with 16 day period or so completes more than 22 billion revolutions around the host star in a one billion year time span. Other examples show hundreds of billions of revolutions, e.g. https://phys.org/news/2021-11-exoplanets-orbiting-sun-like-star.html, more than 228 billion revolutions around the host star in one billion years for the super-hot mercury reported, HD 137496 b.

There is plenty taking place now in exoplanet reports, not only exoplanets like this article where the exoplanet may disappear in 10 million years, but also others indicating hundreds of billions of revolutions taking place around their host stars. Something to ponder concerning their ages reported :)
 
I imagine with the heat and solar wind from the star at that distance, the planet may look something akin to one humongous comet. Perhaps it’ll be stripped down to its core long before the star gobbles it up.
 
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Just wondering: This poor, hapless, overheated excuse for a "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" exoplanet at ~855 ly from Earth may already be vaporized since it's existence is very precarious. Thus, might we be able to see/detect its death throes in much less than 10my?
 
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Just wondering: This poor, hapless, overheated excuse for a "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" exoplanet at ~855 ly from Earth may already be vaporized since it's existence is very precarious. Thus, might we be able to see/detect its death throes in much less than 10my?
sam85geo, from what I can gather reading about this, the exoplanet shows a measurable orbital decay rate that extrapolated, indicates falling into the parent star in about 10 million years. That is much farther into the future than the light-time to Earth from 855 LY distance. However, if the exoplanet was *vaporized* at its present orbit like today moving around the parent star, we would not be able to detect this for another 855 years from now.
 
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FYI for more reading. Reference paper, TOI-2109b: An Ultrahot Gas Giant on a 16 hr Orbit, https://arxiv.org/abs/2111.12074, 23-Nov-2021. "We report the discovery of an ultrahot Jupiter with an extremely short orbital period of 0.67247414 ±0.00000028 days (∼16 hr)."

My note. The 30 page arXiv paper link, https://arxiv.org/pdf/2111.12074.pdf, states in "6. SUMMARY", "The extremely short orbit of TOI-2109b and the intense planet–star gravitational interaction make the system an ideal target for searches for tidal orbital decay."

My note. The space.com article indicates perhaps 10 million years remain before the orbital decay indicates the exoplanet could crash into the parent star. The exoplanet is reported at http://exoplanet.eu/catalog/toi-2109_b/ site too.
 
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FYI. I searched my home database, we have other exoplanets reported too showing orbital decay and indications of spiraling into the parent star. Planet WASP-12b is on a death spiral, say scientists, https://phys.org/news/2020-01-planet-wasp-12b-death-spiral-scientists.html, January 2020.

Planet WASP-12b Might Be on a Death Spiral into its Parent Star, https://www.skyandtelescope.com/astronomy-news/planet-wasp-12b-death-spiral/, Sep-2019. This report indicates a 3 million year death spiral decay.
 
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