For decades, astronomers have seen the "before" and "after" of this process — when a planet is orbiting very close to its star and the bloated stellar old-timer has engulfed the planet. Just last year, an MIT-led research team caught a dying star in the act of absorbing a planet.

While the poet Robert Frost wrote that “Some say the world will end in fire/ Some say in ice,” earthlings may take cold comfort from a newly published discovery that suggests the latter is more likely than previously believed.