A Sun-Like Death Star That Consumed Its Planets Discovered
A Sun-Like ‘Death Star’ That Consumed Its Planets Discovered
By Himanshu Goenka @HimGoJourno On 12/17/16 AT 1:03 AM
HIP68468, a twin star to the sun about 300 light-years away, may have swallowed one or more of its planets, based on lithium and refractory elements recently discovered near its surface. Photo: Gabi Perez / Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias
Stars that are very similar to the sun are called solar twins and astronomers like to study them, especially if they also happen to have exoplanets orbiting them, to better understand the evolution of planetary systems, which would also provide valuable insight into the nature of our own solar system.
When an international team of researchers studied HIP68468, a solar twin about 300 light years away, they discovered the star quite likely consumed planets that once orbited it. The solar twin’s composition revealed it contains four times more lithium than a start of its age — about 6 billion years — would be expected to have. It also contains a larger than usual amount of metals that are resistant to heat and are found in abundance in rocky planets.
“It can be very hard to know the history of a particular star, but once in a while we get lucky and find stars with chemical compositions that likely came from in-falling planets. That’s the case with HIP68468. The chemical remains of one or more planets are smeared in its atmosphere,” Debra Fischer, a professor of astronomy at Yale University who was not involved in the research, said in a statement.
The amount of lithium and the engulfed rocky planet material in the atmosphere of HIP68468 adds up to the equivalent of the mass of six Earths.
More:
http://www.ibtimes.com/sun-death-star-consumed-its-planets-discovered-2462090?rel=most_read4
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