Mysterious planet is vaporized.

Oh, CoRoT-7b, we hardly knew ye. From ABC:

Astronomers appear to have caught an exoplanet – a planet orbiting another star – in the middle of a cosmic vanishing act.

The planet, tagged CoRoT-7b, first hit the headlines last September when a team of astronomers confirmed the orb as the smallest exoplanet yet found. Its diameter is roughly 1.7 times that of Earth. Based on its size and mass, its density is similar to Earth's, indicating that it is a rocky Earth-like orb.

But it wasn't always this small. Scientists estimate that CoRoT-7b initially tipped the cosmic scales at 100 times more mass than Earth and orbited the star at a distance of about 2.3 million miles.

New findings suggest its proximity to its sun gives it a molten-hot surface temperature that is causing the planet to slowly vaporize.

If the astronomers' calculations are correct, the planet could be the first of a new class of planets, which astronomers have dubbed "evaporated remnant cores."