[shadykiller]

Why would the planet be destroyed or have it's course altered ? The Star's mass remains the same and so does the gravity. Wouldn't the planet's own gravity hold it up when it's engulfed, and retrain shape when the star becomes a white dwarf ?

[MauranKilom]

> The Star's mass remains the same

What makes you think so? I'm no expert, but matter is definitely expelled in the process of forming a white dwarf. The stuff scouring the inner planets doesn't appear out of thin air...

This random paper also appears to say that the mass lost is on the order of half the initial mass:

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.3847/1538-4357/aadfd6/...

> total stellar mass loss ranges from 33% of M_initial at 0.83 M_sun to 83% of M_initial at 7.5 M_sun.

[FredPret]

Not an astrophysicist, but it might get torched, blown away by the initial shockwave, or maybe drag between the planet and the solar atmosphere will slow its orbit into a collision course.

[joe-collins]

Well, there would be some extra drag, for one.