Astronomers have nabbed a rare opportunity to watch a planet shrink in real-time. The Jupiter-sized planet, located 160 light years away, is orbiting its host star so closely that the star is boiling the planet's atmosphere. The boiling is so intense, that the world has developed a comet-like tail stretching 350,000 miles behind it, scientists announced on Tuesday. Don't retire on this planetThe planet, called WASP-69b, circles very closely to its star, completing an orbit in under four days. Because it's so large, it takes much longer to lose its atmosphere, giving scientists plenty of time to study it.

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Persons: Don't, Dakotah Tyler, Erik Petigura Organizations: Service, Business, American Astronomical Society, NASA, JPL, Caltech