Astronomers have discovered a disintegrating rocky planet in another solar system.^1,2 This extrasolar planet, or exoplanet, has been given the designation BD+05 4868 Ab. It orbits so close to its host star that the intense heat is literally vaporizing its solid, rocky material! The astronomers making the discovery explained,

Small, rocky planets orbiting their host stars too closely can vaporize...such planets are hot enough to melt and develop thin atmospheres of evaporated rocky material....The surface gravity of a hot, close-in planet with a mass comparable to that of Mercury, or smaller, is too weak to retain such an atmosphere. In such cases, the atmospheric vapor tends to escape into space.²

This brings the total number of known disintegrating/evaporating rocky exoplanets to four.² At least one other rocky exoplanet is also suspected of being vaporized by its host star.³

The destruction of BD+05 4868 Ab is particularly impressive. Two long, dusty, comet-like tails trace half the planet’s orbit. The exoplanet’s mass loss is estimated to equal 10 Earth masses per billion years. If one assumes, as the authors did, that this exoplanet’s present-day mass is 2% that of Earth’s or about 36% that of Mercury’s, then the planet can survive another two million years at most. The lead astronomer on that paper, Dr. Marc Hon of MIT said, “The rate at which the planet is evaporating is utterly cataclysmic, and we are incredibly lucky to be witnessing the final hours of this dying planet.”¹

Why are we “incredibly lucky” to observe this exoplanet’s evaporation? Depending upon their assumed ages and initial masses, disintegration of such rocky exoplanets takes no more than a few hundred million years.² But three hundred million years is only 2% of the alleged 13.8-billion-year history of the universe. Thus, it seems unlikely that we humans would evolve and become intelligent near the very end of this 13.8-billion-year history and then develop astronomy and space telescopes at just the right time to observe not just one but multiple exoplanets in the process of vaporizing. For this reason, conventional astronomers speculate that these doomed exoplanets were only recently forced close to their host stars.

In this case, they [conventional astronomers] still do not fully understand what happened to these planets. Perhaps a collision sapped orbital energy from them, forcing them into closer orbits. Or perhaps there was some long-term interaction with an unseen giant companion that triggered a migration. Either way, something forced these planets into orbits too close for comfort.⁴

Why assume the planets were forced into closer orbits? Why invoke unseen giant companions? Why can’t these planets be in orbits that are close to the orbits God originally gave them? In a 6,000-year-old universe, processes with potential lifetimes of millions of years are not short but are very long-lived. These processes could very well have been going on since creation. It is only in a billions-of-years-old universe that such processes are “short” and unlikely to be observed—hence the suggestion that these exoplanets migrated to their current locations in the relatively recent past.

Previous Creation Science Update articles have described how conventional astronomers’ belief in billions of years has repeatedly caused them to be surprised by exoplanets whose orbits are rapidly decaying or which are losing their atmospheres.^5–8 Relatively short-lived phenomena are found both in deep space and within our solar system.^9,10 But such short-lived phenomena make “researchers uncomfortable, because it is statistically unlikely that humans would catch any one object engaged in unusual activity – let alone several.”¹¹

…Uniformitarian researchers, that is. Creation researchers are delighted by short-lived space phenomena because they are apparent evidence of relative youth, and they are expected since the Lord Jesus created our universe just a few thousand years ago.

References

1. TESS and JWST Unveil Disintegrating Planetary Interiors. Phys.org. Posted on phys.org January 23, 2025, accessed January 29, 2025.
2. Hon, M. et al. A Disintegrating Rocky Planet with Prominent Comet-Like Tails around a Bright Star. arXiv. Posted on arxiv.org January 9, 2025.
3. Kohler, S. Are We Watching a Planet Disintegrate? AAS NOVA. Posted on aasnova.org May 27, 2020, accessed January 29, 2025.
4. Sutter, P. Dissolving Exoplanets Flash Their ‘Guts’ to Reveal a Hidden Side. Astronomy.com. Posted on astronomy.com November 17, 2023, updated July 24, 2024, accessed January 29, 2025.
5. Hebert, J. “Hot Jupiter” on the Verge of Destruction. Creation Science Update. Posted on ICR.org March 19, 2020, accessed January 29, 2025.
6. Hebert, J. Hot Neptune Atmosphere “Shouldn’t Exist.” Creation Science Update. Posted on ICR.org November 5, 2020, accessed January 29, 2025.
7. Hebert, J. New Exoplanet’s Year Is Just 16 Hours. Creation Science Update. Posted on ICR.org December 13, 2021, accessed January 29, 2025.
8. Hebert, J. “Super-Puff” Exoplanets: Evidence of Youth? Creation Science Update. Posted on ICR.org January 6, 2025, accessed January 29, 2025.
9. Hebert, J. 2018. Our Young Solar System. Acts & Facts. 47 (9): 10–13.
10. Hebert, J. 2019. Deep-Space Objects are Young. Acts & Facts. 48 (9): 10–13.
11. McKee, M. 2013. Caught in the Act. Nature. 493 (7434): 592–596.

* Dr. Hebert is a research associate at the Institute for Creation Research and earned his Ph.D. in physics from the University of Texas at Dallas.