By Will Dunham WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Astronomers have spotted a small rocky planet that orbits perilously close to its host star disintegrating as its surface is vaporized by stellar heat, trailed by a comet-like tail of mineral dust up to about 5.

MIT astronomers have discovered a planet some 140 light-years from Earth that is rapidly crumbling to pieces. The disintegrating world is about the mass of Mercury, although it circles about 20 times closer to its star than Mercury does to the sun,

Astronomers have detected a small planet that is literally falling to pieces. The object, coined BD +05 4868 Ab, orbits a star in the constellation Pegasus approximately 140 light years from Earth. Each 30.