A crumbling exoplanet spills its guts

Astronomers have determined the internal composition of a distant planet for the first time

A bright yellow orb of an exoplanet with a dark shadowy streak running almost all the way across it

Disintegrating exoplanets, like the one illustrated here, spill their guts into space in a long cometlike tail.

JPL-Caltech/NASA

NATIONAL HARBOR, MD. — For the first time, astronomers have taken a direct look at an exoplanet’s insides.