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It's a slow death. The planet WASP-18b has maybe a million years to live, said planet discoverer Coel Hellier, a professor of astrophysics at the Keele University in England. Hellier's report on the suicidal planet is in Thursday's issue of the journal Nature.
"It's causing its own destruction by creating these tides," Hellier said.
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The planet circles a star that is in the constellation Phoenix and is about 325 light-years away from Earth, which means it is in our galactic neighborhood. A light-year is about 5.8 trillion miles.
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Like most planets outside our solar system, this planet was not seen directly by a telescope. Astronomers found it by seeing dips in light from the star every time the planet came between the star and Earth.
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The answer will become apparent in less than a decade if the planet seems to be further in a death spiral, he said.

So if the planet has "maybe a million years" left, how will there be enough change in "less than a decade" to make any answers apparent?

So if the planet has "maybe a million years" left, how will there be enough change in "less than a decade" to make any answers apparent?

At the current rate a decade is ~4,000 orbits.

If the rate is substantially faster in a decade that means the planet is spiraling in faster and faster. If it's ~4,010/decade that indicates a longer time remaining than if it's ~8,000

In economics terms, if 0bama pumps 9 trillion dollars into a 1 trillion dollar economy in 10 years we can predict that (by the time that 9 trillion multiplies its way through the banking system) a 2019 dollar will buy about one one hundredth as much as a 2009 dollar.

A 2019 dollar will be worth just one of today's pennies.

Kewl.

We'll all be millionaires...