A new research study including Monash University astrophysicists sheds light on the deficiency of our Solar System, which has actually maintained its planets and kept them on nearly circular orbits, a plan conducive to life growing on Earth.
The research, published recently in Nature Astronomy and led by Dr. Lorenzo Spina at the National Institute for Astrophysics based in Italy, expands our knowledge on the possible evolutionary paths of planetary systems, according to study co-author Parth Sharma, an Honours trainee at the Monash University School of Physics and Astronomy.
” Regardless of the innovation at our disposal, with millions of close-by Sun-like stars, the search for worlds comparable to our Earth will always appear like the proverbial needle in a haystack,” said Parth.
” However, our outcomes open the future possibility of utilizing chemical abundances to better identify stars that are most likely to host Solar System analogues,” he stated.
” These findings represent a substantial breakthrough in excellent astrophysics and exoplanet expedition.
” The research refines search parameters for future examination of potential planetary engulfment occasions, probes the origins of chemically weird stars, and tells us much about the development of solar systems, and planets, like our own.”
Outstanding members of double stars are formed from the same product, therefore they ought to be chemically similar. Nevertheless, recent high-precision research studies have revealed chemical differences in between the two members of binary sets made up by Sun-like stars.
The extremely existence of these chemically inhomogeneous binaries represents among the most inconsistent examples in outstanding astrophysics and source of tension between theory and observations.
” It was still unclear whether the abundance variations are the result of chemical inhomogeneities in the protostellar gas clouds, or if they are because of planet engulfment occasions occurring after the star has formed,” said Parth.
The research team carried out an analytical study on 107 double stars made up by Sun-like stars to provide– for the very first time– unambiguous evidence in favor of the world engulfment scenario.
They also established that planet engulfment events occurred in stars comparable to our own Sun with a likelihood ranging in between 20% and 35%.
” This suggests that a significant fraction of planetary systems undergo very dynamical evolutionary paths that can critically and disastrously modify their architectures, unlike our Solar System which has preserved its worlds on almost circular orbits,” stated Parth.
For more on this research, see A Quarter of Stars Like Our Sun Eat Their Own Planets.
Reference: “Chemical evidence for planetary consumption in a quarter of Sun-like stars” by Lorenzo Spina, Parth Sharma, Jorge Meléndez, Megan Bedell, Andrew R. Casey, Marília Carlos, Elena Franciosini and Antonella Vallenari, 30 August 2021, Nature Astronomy.DOI: 10.1038/ s41550-021-01451-8.
How typical is our Solar System? Less common than we might believe.
A significant portion of planetary systems around Sun-like stars have had a very vibrant past, culminating with the fall of worlds into the main star.