Space scientists don’t know the exact size of the universe and how many planets are there, but they know that many planets born and die with time. Kepler spacecraft of the United States space agency, NASA, has now captured a small planet tearing apart.

Andrew Vanderburg from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge said that it was the first time when researchers saw a mini-planet dying due to intense gravity. The miniature planet was seen showering rocky material onto its star, according to the lead author of the paper published in Nature.

The small planet orbits its white dwarf, named ‘WD 1145+017’, one time in every four and half hours. The orbit time suggests that the planet was passing very close to its white dwarf. According to Vanderburg, researcher team noticed a unique pattern in the light traces as the tiny planet transited it while dwarf. There should be U-shaped pattern, but instead of that, there was an elongated, asymmetrical shape, which means the planet was leaving debris like a comet, said Vanderburg.

According to lead researcher Vanderburg, “Eureka moment of discovery came on the last night of observation with a sudden realization of what was going around the white dwarf. The shape and changing depth of the transit were undeniable signatures”.

Another research group analyzed data collected by Kepler and the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) and found that some earth-like planets are forming in the universe. As per their study, universe is making stars at much slower rate than it was making about 10 billion years ago, but as hydrogen and helium is available, there are chances that the process will continue in future.