[Vision2020] Red Giant Devous Planet, Hints at Earth's Fate

[Ted Moffett]

 No need to speculate about when is the ultimate end of our world... The
fate described below is inevitable!
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48746034/ns/technology_and_science-space/#.UDVDNXlqFnUGiant
dying star caught devouring alien planet  Astronomers say red giant's
behavior hints at Earth's fate in billions of years

A swollen star near the end if its life has been caught devouring one of
its own planets — a scenario that could one day be replayed on Earth when
our own sun dies in billions of years, scientists say.

Astronomers discovered the cosmic crime scene while studying an ancient
star that has expanded in its old age to became a so-called "red
giant<http://www.space.com/14364-earth-consumed-red-giant-star-5b-years.html>."
The star, called BD+48 740, is older than our sun and much bigger. Its
radius is 11 times larger than that of our sun.

As the star swelled into a red giant, it probably absorbed its innermost
planet, researchers said.

"A similar fate may await the inner planets in our solar
system<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48746034/ns/technology_and_science-space/#>,
when the sun becomes a red giant and
expands<http://www.space.com/7084-life-earth-escape-swelling-sun.html>all
the way out to Earth's orbit some 5 billion years from now," study
team
member Alex Wolszczan, an astronomer at Pennsylvania State University, said
in a statement. Earth orbits the sun at a distance of about 93 million
miles (150 million kilometers). [How the Sun Will Die
(Video)<http://www.space.com/10245-sun-die-earth.html>
]

Two key pieces of evidence identified the star as a
planet-killer<http://www.space.com/15535-alien-planets-eaten-dying-stars.html>,
researchers said.

First, the astronomers found abnormally high amounts of lithium, a rare
element in the universe, inside the star. That fact alone hinted that a
missing planet may be
involved<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48746034/ns/technology_and_science-space/#>
.

"In the case of BD+48 740, it is probable that the lithium production was
triggered by a mass the size of a planet that spiraled into the star and
heated it up while the star was digesting it," said Wolszczan, who led the
team that discovered the first planets beyond our solar system, back in
1992.

Then there was the strange orbit of a giant planet discovered around the
star. The huge planet is about 1.6 times as massive as Jupiter and circles
the star in an extremely elliptical orbit.

"We discovered that this planet revolves around the star in an orbit that
is only slightly wider than that of Mars at its narrowest point, but is
much more extended at its farthest point," said study team member Andrzej
Niedzielski of Nicolaus
Copernicus<http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48746034/ns/technology_and_science-space/#>University
in Torun, Poland. "Such orbits are uncommon in planetary
systems around evolved
stars<http://www.space.com/10761-sky-full-alien-planets.html>and, in
fact, the BD+48 740 planet's orbit is the most elliptical one
detected so far."

The gravitational fallout of a second planet plunging into the parent star
could have been enough to toss the observed alien planet into the chaotic
orbit seen by the researchers.

"The highly elongated orbit of the massive planet we discovered around this
lithium-polluted red-giant star is exactly the kind of evidence that would
point to the star's recent destruction of its now-missing planet," said
study team member Eva Villaver of the Universidad Autonoma de Madrid in
Spain.

Still, Villaver said catching such an event in the act was an "improbable
feat."

The international team of astronomers used the Hobby-Eberly Telescope at
the McDonald Observatory in Texas to study the star BD+48 740. The study's
lead author is astronomer Monika Adamow of Nicolaus Copernicus University.
Astronomer Grzegorz Nowak, also of Nicolaus Copernicus University, also
participated in the study.

The research into the case of the planet-killing star is detailed in a
study appearing online in the Astrophysical Journal.

-----------------------------------------

Vision2020 Post: Ted Moffett
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