Paul M. Sutter is an astrophysicist at SUNY Stony Brook and the Flatiron Institute in New York City. Paul received his PhD in Physics from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2011, and spent three years at the Paris Institute of Astrophysics, followed by a research fellowship in Trieste, Italy, His research focuses on many diverse topics, from the emptiest regions of the universe to the earliest moments of the Big Bang to the hunt for the first stars. As an 'Agent to the Stars,' Paul has passionately engaged the public in science outreach for several years. He is the host of the popular 'Ask a Spaceman!' podcast, author of 'Your Place in the Universe' and 'How to Die in Space' and he frequently appears on TV — including on The Weather Channel, for which he serves as Official Space Specialist.
are an especially violent time. The protostar at the center grows in both temperature and density — but fitfully, occasionally throwing off massive tantrum storms of plasma.
Meanwhile, the planets begin evolving around the temperamental star. Accreting from smaller building blocks, the planetesimals crash into each other, gravitationally destabilize each other and generally roughhouse as they attempt to become full-fledged planets. Naturally, all this commotion ejects some material from the system, with other material flowing into the still-forming star.This influx of planet-building material into the central star can be slow or fast.
The ferocious energy and searing temperature inside a star are more than enough to completely destroy a planet. And that's assuming the planet even survives entry and isn't torn to shreds by the gravitational tidal forces around the star as the planet passes close. Within only a few years, an Earth-like planet would be entirely consumed.
The only remaining evidence that a star killed one of its planets is an extra abundance of metals, meaning, in astronomers' context, any element heavier than helium. And these are the elements — like silicon, oxygen and carbon — that planets need to grow. Over time, the engulfed metals will slowly slink their way to the heart of a star, simply because those elements are heavier than the hydrogen and helium that make up the vast bulk of a star. Astronomers can only determine what a star is made of based on what's on the surface, because the surface is the only part of the star to emit light. It's from the spectral fingerprint of that light that scientists can figure out what elements are inside a star.
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