[bedolido]

[Pyro7480]

Ping for APOD members.

[Quilla]

[dfwgator]

I thought this article was going to be about Rosie O'Donnell.

[The G Man]

Damn. I thought it was going to turn out to be Michael Strahan. I bet he could probably spit 'em back out with his mouth closed too.

[TheBigB]

...followed by a mutha of a TUMS...

[Mr. Bird]

Famous maybe, but I wouldn't call Michael Moore a "star".

[Tacis]

See, if a democrat had been president, I'm sure that this news would have been so disturbing that we would have passed a law aimed at preventing it and assuring that, for the sake of the children of future generations, it didn't happen again. Heck, there might even have been little frogs, fishies or bugs on any one of those poor planets; darn, there might even have been minority folks on those poor planets.

[4mycountry]

[Joe Bonforte]

Giant star caught swallowing three planets

I didn't know Barry Bonds could eat that much.

[areafiftyone]

A giant star has been caught in the act of swallowing three planets, one after the other, with each "meal" accompanied by a massive eruption.

That massive eruption is called a SOLAR BURP!!

[StriperSniper]

The star, known as V838 Monocerotis,

affectionately dubbed 'Monica' by the previous administrations science advisor...

[Jonah Hex]

Giant star caught swallowing three planets

Gee, and I thought this was about Mary Carey and the California governor's race.

[SwinneySwitch]

Bad, Star, bad!

[js1138]

Easy come, easy go.

[csvset]

Planet Rock

Afrika Bambaataa/Kraftwerk hip-hop/techno bump

[jae471]

analysis of light emissions from the star indicates that it was a red giant that expanded and successively swallowed three relatively massive planets

... Existing models of what will happen when our Sun expands to become a red giant, in about one billion years, suggest that Venus and Mercury will both be engulfed. The likely fate of the Earth is unclear. "Our work suggests that once one planet is engulfed, there is an eruption, and then further expansion - so it might suggest that Earth will indeed be swallowed. But this will need to be checked carefully with the models," Retter says.

I really doubt the expanding sun swallowing Mercury or Venus will have much of an effect on the total expansion.

The planets that caused the eruptions in V838 Mon were "relatively massive", probably putting them in a range of 10-20 M_j, possibly up to 35 M_j -- almost enough to trigger fusion on their own, and definately enough to emit more radiation then they absorb.

In terms of mass, the sun swallowing both Mercury and Venus would add .0002 percent more mass to the sun. Now, if the sun were to swallow three 10 M_j planets, it would add 3% to the Sun's mass. Quite a difference.

[Larry Lucido]

when our Sun expands to become a red giant, in about one billion years

I thought we had 5 billion years before that happened. What happened to our other 4 billion years?

Time to invest in beachfront property on Mars, I guess.

[rintense]

Giant star caught swallowing three planets

Jeremy Shockey opened his mouth again???

JK. This is cool stuff. To capture it on film is awesome.

[#3Fan]

Ancient mythology states that Saturn swallowed several of it's moons. Big Red Spot on Juptiter perhaps a swallowed moon?

[PBRSTREETGANG]

Giant star caught swallowing three planets

Well, the Giants sure "caught their lunch" on Monday night.