Giant star caught swallowing three planets

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.

"It has been suggested in the past that stars might engulf planets in this way, but we believe we have actually caught this action for the first time," says Alon Retter of the University of Sydney, Australia.

The star, known as V838 Monocerotis, is about 20,000 light years from Earth. In January 2002, it temporarily became the brightest star in the Milky Way, 600,000 times more luminous than the Sun. At the time, astronomers struggled to explain the spectacular explosion.

Retter and colleague Ariel Marom believe their new analysis of light emissions from the star indicates that it was a red giant that expanded and successively swallowed three relatively massive planets in quick succession. The time between the first and the last engulfment was only about two months.

"In principle, that explanation seems OK," says John Lattanzio, director of the Centre for Stellar and Planetary Astrophysics at Monash University. But he says the star was too hot to have been a red giant. "It was probably one that was on its way there - that could fit the parameters."

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.

The light analysed from V838 Monocerotis shows that after a short but gradual decline in luminosity following January's outburst, the star suddenly increased in brightness again in early February. The phenomenon was repeated a third time in March.

Retter and Marom found that each of the three maximum peaks in brightness were followed by secondary, weaker peaks. This repeating pattern suggests each event had the same cause, says Retter. The data also reveals the presence of large amounts of lithium and barium, which astronomers had proposed might indicate that a star had swallowed a planet.

Initially it was suggested that the first explosion was some kind of nova outburst, but this was hard to match to the observations. Other researchers suggested that two stars had collided.

"But again, this cannot explain the complicated light curve," Retter says "Our explanation, that the star swallowed three planets, fits all the observational features of the star."

Retter and Marom describe their analysis in a letter accepted by the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Why would you and others of your ilk post things so obtuse on a thread which, because of it's scientific interests, should be seen by homeschoolers and other young people who can be directed to the thread by email or instant messaging?

Why would you want to embarrass, besmirch or defame the reputation of the site in the eyes of their parents and cause conservative views which this site is supposed to evidence to be looked at with the disdain reserved for the Clintonian types?

Instead of bringing honor and respect to the site you all are intent on vesting it with a reputation suitable for a dung hill and making our host and those who appreciate the site a laughing stock among the intelligent or the beckoning byword for the porn inclined.

Please stop wreaking as much destruction as any DU disrupter and bringing as much shame to the site as Clinton has to this Nation.

Your marvelous quick wit and obvious capability with humor would be so refreshing, captivating and joy producing to so many if it reflected wisdom rather than rot. It would bring you great respect rather than disrepute.

"ilk"? cuuuuuute...

"obtuse"? "besmirch"? "defame"?
Oh, do calm down. Or be concise: "sully" would have sufficed succinctly, and been more accurate.

Some counterpoints:
1. The original article on the New Scientist website is the one which should be studied by the little rugrats, as the post here has no data.
2. Blame whoever wrote the humor-inspiring headline over at New Scientist - the puns and jests are as inevitable a byproduct of such a headline as is a nova of the fusion-to-iron stellar cycle.
3. While I will agree that Holdmuhbeer's sexual reference was inappropriate, I do so only because it skirts very close to violating the site's posting guidelines. Whether or not it actually crosses that line is a matter for the Admin Moderator to decide - not me... and not you. To attempt to do so, as you seem to have intended, in the tone and timbre you used, seems a usurpation of a mantle of authority and comes as close as the sexual reference does to violating a clause of the posting guidelines: "no personal attacks".

I normally don't rag on folks, but you ragged on all of us who like to season our awe with irreverence, and I do not believe you have just cause. Please do not do so again. You took what could have been made as a valid point and instead made it into an exercise in supercilious vainglory, causing annoyance instead of concord - let alone penitence.
(And: Yes, I can Bulwer-Lytton with the best of them).
Life is not and should not be as dour as you would seem to prefer. So, again: Do calm down.

"My dog is center of the universe, everyone knows that"

Woof!

Nietzsche lamented finally after that codex of Teutonic claptrap he'd scribbled, that all of life's mysteries could be explained if we'd only look to our dogs. Mine isn't talking much, but I figure that's probably one of the things he was referring to. People who shut up and listen are usually a lot wiser than me. Think how wise a dog must be.

Dogs don't care about conservative values. They don't care about creationism nor the scientific method either. They don't care about anything but you. I think they care about astronomy at least a little bit though, because mine smiles up at the stars at night, and of course the very first starship captain was a dog as well, the first living creature ever to escape the bounds of earth and rocket into space.

Why did they call it the USS Enterprise? Why didn't they call it the Starship Laika? One says nothing so much as "conquer", while the other suggests Ensign Rover sticking her head out the passenger side window at Warp 3, and if she smells any poop down there on that planet, well then it's time to beam down and check out the life forms.

She died up there, and probably didn't want to go into space in the first place, but if someone had loved her and she'd understood she was going to journey so far on their behalf, even if she did have to die in the process, she'd probably have done it anyway. Dogs will die for the people they love. Nietzsche knew that, and he knew it was worth more than all the religious and existential arguments ever dreamed up.

The night sky is beautiful where I live, right on the farthest northwest corner of California. I'm a long way from the light pollution of any big city, so the Milky Way can be seen the way it ought to see it here. On a good night one can see the Andromeda Galaxy with the naked eye. The recent meteor shower was beautiful, one about every four minutes.

She spent three months up there, though she'd died in less than a week. When the Russian public was apprised of the fact that no recovery plan was part of the mission, a national indignation erupted like nothing seen since before the revolution. Twenty-eight million had died in the war, and forty million more at the hands of a butcher whom only Mao would surpass in his evil. Yet the Russian people had drawn a line in the sand where inhumanity would not transcend.

It set the Russian space program back several months and costs millions of extra rubles, but a recovery program was instituted for every canine cosmonaut after Laika, and nearly all the dogs that went into space thereafter were recovered safely.

Somebody must have seen what they thought was a meteorite streaking the eastern horizon. A tiny three-second cascade of blue light and dust. It wasn't a meteorite though, it was a dog in her starship who like so many of her species lost thousands of miles away, had through some myterious capability finally found her way home.

Give your bible a rest. Read God and the Astronomers by Carl Jastrow if you have to use theological and scientiful collusion to find God in the cosmos. Its the most beautifully written epistle for the existence of God I've ever read. But I don't need things like that anymore. I know where to look for God. Zack Nguyen is right. All I need to do is look to the center the universe to see God in his handiwork every day. God is easy to spot. She usually has a tennis ball in her mouth.

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