By Ron Cowen
Planets beware! Get too close to your parent star and you will vaporize.
![](https://i0.wp.com/www.sciencenews.org/wp-content/uploads/2003/03/2545.jpg?resize=105%2C150&ssl=1)
That’s the message of a study that examines a planet residing within roasting distance of the star it orbits. The planet, dubbed HD209458b, circles a star at one-eighth the distance that Mercury orbits our sun. Observations suggest that the close-in planet, blasted by the star’s heat and radiation and tugged by the star’s gravity, can’t hold on to all its material. Every second, the star is stripping at least 10,000 tons of hydrogen from the planet, according to Alfred Vidal-Madjar of the Astrophysics Institute of Paris and his colleagues, who report their study in the March 13 Nature.