NASA Webb’s Autopsy of Planet Swallowed by Star Yields Surprise

The James Webb Space Telescope was never meant to perform autopsies. However, no one anticipated a star to consume its own planet in this manner. Dr. Lena Kaur stared at the most recent JWST spectral data. A red giant star had recently done the unthinkable, devouring a rocky planet the size of Earth, about 12,000 light-years away in the constellation Scutum. It had been caught in the act by Webb's infrared eye, which had recorded heat signatures, chemical trails, and atmospheric screams. They had named the system Zeta-G Scorpii, but internally, the team just called it “The Furnace.”

In the past, the planet had orbited too closely. The star's outer layers ballooned outward as it grew older and became a red giant, eventually engulfing the helpless planet. The inflowing data resembled a cosmic crash site's black box. An autopsy of a world.

The surprise wasn't, however, that. Inside the debris—atoms vaporized and flung into space—there were signs of artificial elements. Engineered alloys, not natural ones: technetium-97 isotope traces in complex ratios and uncommon crystalline formations that wouldn't have formed naturally in such a setting. “Someone was building something,” whispered Lena in the mission briefing room, scrolling through the heat maps. “Or maybe living there.”

The idea was unthinkable, but the data was insistent. Embedded in the gas cloud were fragments of a possible megastructure—carbon nanotube matrices intertwined with microscopic circuitry. The kind of thing that suggested an advanced civilization, maybe even one trying to shield the planet, or mine the star, or escape it.

Or… trap something inside it.

A silent hush fell over the NASA team.

The entire event had been recorded by the Webb telescope, which was silently drifting a million miles away from Earth. The ingestion. The lights. The stench of dying technology being destroyed. It wasn’t just watching a planet die—it was uncovering the funeral rites of an ancient intelligence.

The surprise wasn’t that a star ate a planet.

The surprise was that the planet may have screamed back.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope has captured a rare celestial phenomenon—a dying star engulfing a nearby planet—in a dramatic cosmic event billions of years in the making. But what truly surprised scientists wasn’t the act itself—it was the mysterious chemical signature left behind.

While such planetary engulfments have long been theorized, Webb’s advanced infrared sensors allowed astronomers to conduct an unprecedented autopsy of the aftermath. As the star expanded into its red giant phase and consumed the planet, the telescope detected a burst of light and a sudden influx of heavy elements in the star’s outer layers.

Elevated levels of lithium and other uncommon substances that are not typically found in aging stars were among the findings. These chemical markers suggest that the planet’s composition was richer and more complex than expected, possibly containing water, silicates, and even carbon-based compounds.

“This is like a cosmic crime scene,” said Dr. Lila Anderson, a lead astrophysicist on the team. “We’re analyzing the clues left behind to understand the final moments of this planetary system—and what we’re seeing challenges our assumptions about planetary formation and destruction.”

Astronomers are using the data to improve models of how dying stars interact with planets in orbit. It also provides insight into the potential fate of our own solar system—about five billion years from now, Earth may face a similar destiny as our Sun expands.

But for now, the Webb Telescope continues to shine a light on the universe’s most violent, beautiful mysteries—one stellar autopsy at a time.

a planet engulfed by a star. Surprisingly, it revealed unusual chemical fingerprints—like lithium—unexpected in such stellar phases. These findings offer new insights into planetary destruction and stellar evolution, reshaping our understanding of what happens when stars devour their own worlds.