Unfortunately sometimes stars engulf their own worlds. While many stars have the ability to quickly cover the evidence for their criminal activity, a new research study by astronomers has actually exposed that in many cases the evidence can stick around for up to two billion years.
There are a variety of methods which a world can wind up entering of a star. The most typical cause takes place during the early days of the formation of a planetary system. When worlds initially begin forming, they start as planetesimals. A normal solar system like our own will have lots of planetesimals. These will clash off of each other and gravitationally communicate with each other. In some cases these crashes cause mergers, and in some cases the interactions lead to several things getting ejected from the system completely. But perhaps most unfortunately, sometimes these interactions result in a planet or 2 wandering too near its moms and dad star.
When this happens the world will get torn apart by the gravitational tidal forces of the star. However even if for some reason it is able to stay undamaged through this passage, then it will not last long. A common Earth-sized planet will last just a couple of hours in the severe temperature level and pressure conditions inside of a star.
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Perhaps most unfortunately, in some cases these interactions lead to a world or 2 wandering too close to its moms and dad star.
When this occurs the planet will get torn apart by the gravitational tidal forces of the star. They targeted binary star systems since its extremely hard to inform if a singular star engulfed its planets or simply was born with a higher proportion of much heavier elements. With binary stars, if one of the stars has a much greater abundance of heavy components, then thats a sign that world engulfment has actually occurred.
Those stars orbited each other greater than 30,000 AU away, and so its possible that the metal enrichment of one of the stars was just due to random chance, and not evidence of engulfment.
With the world gone the only evidence astronomers have is a minor elevation in the proportion of heavy elements on the stars surface area. However as soon as those aspects sink too far listed below the surface, which they do since planetary components are typically heavier than the hydrogen and helium inside star, then we can no longer detect it.
They targeted binary star systems because its extremely challenging to tell if a solitary star engulfed its worlds or merely was born with a greater percentage of much heavier aspects. With binary stars, if one of the stars has a much greater abundance of heavy aspects, then thats an indication that world engulfment has taken place.
While astronomers have actually identified a number of binary systems like this, this was the very first study to particularly target systems with known planets in orbit around them. With this restriction the team behind the research study discovered only a single system that had one of a binary set of stars with an enrichment of heavy metals. However, those stars orbited each other greater than 30,000 AU away, therefore its possible that the metal enrichment of among the stars was just due to random opportunity, and not evidence of engulfment.
Based upon this, the astronomers approximate that most stars are able to bury the evidence of planet-killing in less than 90 million years. For larger and longer-lived stars, particularly ones 10 to 20% more huge than the Sun, they can hang on to the evidence for up to 2 billion years..
In either case, the evidence for world engulfment does not last long. And we are not likely to see the residues of these sort of criminal offenses in systems older than one or 2 billion years. It seems that when it comes to planet killing, there is a cosmic statute of limitations.
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