For the first time, they are “hunting” for a star that has swallowed up a planet.

When star approaching death from lack of fuel, he suddenly begins to increase volume. He does this in the process, where he can gobble up almost everything around him. For example, when our Sun reaches sunset, it will take the Earth’s innermost planets with it. solar systemincluding the earth. This is something that has been studied for a long time. However, so far no one has been able to capture the exact moment when the star swallows the nearest planet.

The moment before and after was observed, but not only when one star absorbs another. For this reason, the discovery he has just published in Nature of particular interest is a team of astronomers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and other research centers.

And this is what they captured for the first time in history Red-handed To the star that swallowed the planet. It took more than a year and observation with various instruments to confirm this with sufficient certainty. But, no doubt, the wait was worth it, because these scientists went down in history.

star phases

A star is born when it accumulates dust and gas rich in helium and hydrogen one nebula it shrinks and collapses. At this stage, we are faced with protostar, which gradually heats up until it reaches the right temperature to carry out nuclear fusion using hydrogen as fuel. This nuclear fusion can cause the star to expand. However, it is so massive that its own gravity compensates for this effect.

But this cannot happen forever. There comes a point when the fuel starts to wear out, so it loses mass, and gravity isn’t strong enough to keep it from expanding. Fuel is getting smaller and a star more swollen, reaching the end, which will depend on its mass. If it is a medium-sized star, when there is no fuel left, its stars diverge. outer layersleaving only its core, which we know as white gnome. On the other hand, if it is much more massive, when its fuel is used up, it results in an explosion known as supernova and then to a neutron star. And, finally, if this is one of the most massive stars, then it also explodes, but generates black hole.

Hunting Red-handed planets

This story begins in 2020 when Kishalay Izfrom the Massachusetts Institute of Technology analyzed the data obtained Transition Center Zwicky (ZTF), executed at Caltech’s Palomar Observatory in California. The purpose of ZTF is to scan the sky for stars that quickly change brightness. Thus, it is possible to detect, for example, the aforementioned supernovae, as well as gamma-ray bursts.

Even though the astronomer was familiar with these changes in brightness, one night the astronomer noticed something he had never seen before. The star became 100 times brighter in just one week. It was something completely out of the ordinary, so he turned to telescopes for help. Keck Observatory, from Hawaii. They are equipped with spectrographs that can help determine the star’s composition. Thus, he hoped to confirm that it was a double star. That is, a pair of stars in which one steals matter from the other, releasing a lot of energy. The problem is that these stars usually emit hydrogen and helium. But none of these gases were detected. Essentially, what they observed in Hawaii was a series of unusual compounds found only in cool stars. But how can it be?

If a star were excited enough to shine this way, it would have to warming up, does not cool down. It took a year to find the missing piece of the puzzle.

De and other scientists who participated later decided to resort to infrared cameralocated at the Palomar Observatory. They thought this would be useful, since infrared measurements can detect signals from much colder material.

Indeed, the source was very bright in the near infrared range. This star was very cold. It could have been a star that merged with another instead of causing an outburst. But to be sure, they turned to NASA’s infrared space telescope, NEOVIZ. This allowed them to verify that the amount of energy released was 1/1000 times that any stellar merger. This indicated that if the merger occurred, then the second member of the pair was not another star, but something smaller. Considering Jupiter its mass is only 1000 times less than that of the Sun, it seemed that it was a planet of this size.

Therefore, the flash did not come from a star, but from a dying planet before it was swallowed up by a dying star. This, as it used up its fuel, got colder, hence the materials found in Hawaii.

This time they managed to observe the hunt at the right moment. Not before, not after. This is basically what will happen to the Earth with the Sun, but there is still a long way to go. 5 billion yearsso take it easy. In the meantime, it remains only to celebrate this discovery. It was a difficult puzzle, but putting all the pieces together was a lot of fun.