The team of researchers from MIT, Harvard and Caltech established that the swallowed planet was a gas giant with a mass similar to Jupiter, but it was so close to its star that it completed one orbit in only a day.
This star, which is very similar to the Sun, began by gnawing at the planet on its sides over a period of about 100 days, ejecting dust.
The bright outburst occurred over the last 10 days as the planet was completely destroyed when it collapsed inside the star.
Miguel Montarges, an astronomer at the Paris Observatory who was not involved in the research, noted that the star was thousands of degrees hotter than the planet.
“It’s like putting an ice cube in a boiling pot,” he told AFP.