Stars Similar To Our Sun Are Discovered To Enjoy A Meal Of… Their Own Planets
Image via photo ID 54817370 © Blackzheep | Dreamstime.com
In binary star systems, like ours, two sibling stars usually orbit each other. Although they’re related, their chemical makeup can often be quite different. It’s not known exactly why, but two potential explanations stand the strongest.
One of them is that although they’re twin stars, they were made different from birth due to “inhomogeneities” in the gas clouds that formed them. Again, this doesn’t have an explanation.
But the second explanation, while a little more sinister, is more likely. One of the stars might have been nourished a little differently to the other: it “ate up” some planets.
An international team of astronomers, led by the Italian National Observatory’s Lorenzo Spina, published their recent findings in Nature Astronomy. After observing a 107-strong sample binary pairs of stars that resemble our Sun, they found that 33 were “chemically anomalous.”
This means they contain a higher level of iron than what would’ve been expected. And in turn, this means that the “scenario in which stars are being polluted by Earth-like material accreted from their planetary systems” is highly likely.
“We also establish that planet engulfment events occur in Sun-like stars with a 20–35% probability,” the scientists write.
However, this doesn’t mean that we’re going to be consumed by our own Sun, thankfully. As the team describes, our own solar system is relatively “calm.” Instead, the findings will allow astronomers to use “chemical abundances” to search for other stars with the potential to “host Solar System analogues.”
Essentially, it could help us search for other planets that resemble Earth and all its conducive living conditions.
[via CNET, image via photo ID 54817370 © Blackzheep | Dreamstime.com]
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