It is thought the Sun whitethorn person engulfed a super-Earth-sized satellite early successful its history.
Now a caller study has gone a measurement further by suggesting that specified an arena whitethorn person near down detectable clues wrong our prima which could still beryllium visible today.
This thought of a measurable signature aliases 'fingerprints' successful the present-day star interior was explored by investigation published coming successful Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Professor Mutlu Yildiz, of Ege University successful Turkey, said: "Our caller study suggests that a satellite respective times much monolithic than Earth whitethorn person fallen into the young Sun and near a lasting chemic imprint heavy wrong it.
"By modelling the Sun's improvement and comparing the results pinch precise observations of its interior, we find that the ingestion of a super-Earth could thief explicate long-standing differences betwixt modular star models and observations, including subtle changes successful the Sun's soul building and its depleted lithium abundance."
Researchers besides recovered that specified a world could past its transition done the Sun's outer layers while losing very small mass, which suggests that planets whitethorn time off detectable fingerprints wrong their big stars agelong aft they person disappeared.
For galore years, star models based connected the modular physics of stellar improvement person had trouble reproducing immoderate helioseismic observations simultaneously, peculiarly the sound-speed building conscionable beneath the convection area and the extent of the star convection zone.
At the aforesaid time, the Sun shows a beardown and well-known depletion of lithium astatine its surface.
"We were willing whether these problems mightiness person a communal root successful the early chemic history of the Sun," Professor Yildiz explained.
"Young stars are surrounded by protoplanetary discs, wherever important amounts of worldly tin move betwixt the disc and the star.
"Since planets are made of worldly that is chemically different from the state successful the disc, we wondered whether the early engulfment of a satellite could person near a chemic signature wrong the young Sun."
The researchers utilized the MESA stellar-evolution codification to trial their idea. They explored different accretion histories and compared the resulting star models pinch helioseismic constraints and aboveground abundances, while besides testing replacement explanations involving the equation of state, opacity, and different prescriptions for turbulent and convective mixing.
Their results favour a script successful which the young Sun engulfed a super-Earth astir 5–10 times the wide of Earth.
Importantly, their modelling besides does not explicate conscionable 1 puzzle. It simultaneously matches respective independent measurements of the Sun, including observations of its interior and its unusually debased lithium abundance.
"We thought planetary engulfment mightiness impact the star building but did not expect the calculations to converge connected specified a circumstantial super-Earth wide range," said Professor Yildiz. "That was 1 of the astir absorbing outcomes of the study."
He added that while it whitethorn not beryllium imaginable to definitively beryllium the Sun swallowed a planet, if the predicted structural and chemic signature could beryllium independently identified done helioseismic aliases different observations, it would supply beardown grounds for specified an arena happening billions of years ago.
Astronomers person agelong wondered why galore different prima systems look to person ample super-Earths, while ours has none.
The caller study cites previous investigation from a decade agone by Martin & Livio (2016), which suggested that 1 aliases much super-Earths could person formed wrong the orbit of Mercury and migrated inward done the state disc, perchance falling into the young Sun.
However, though this investigation provided a theoretical pathway for an engulfment event, it did not require that specified a satellite was yet swallowed by our star.
"The earlier activity projected that a super-Earth could person formed and migrated into the young Sun. Our insubstantial asks whether the Sun itself could still transportation observable grounds that specified an engulfment really happened, and we judge it could," Professor Yildiz concluded.
"The adjacent measurement is to spot if these fingerprints tin beryllium independently detected."
ENDS
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Sam Tonkin
Royal Astronomical Society
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Science contacts
Professor Mutlu Yildiz
Ege University
Images & captions
Swallowed by the Sun
Caption: An artist's belief of a prima engulfing a planet. The bluish statement traces the way of the satellite arsenic it spirals toward the prima and yet collides pinch it.
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, Ralf Crawford (STScI)
Further information
The insubstantial 'Planetary engulfment arsenic a solution to solar-model discrepancies and its implications for planetary systems' by M. Yildiz has been published successful Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stag1527.
Notes for editors
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