HIP68468
Latest
Planet-eating star shows the Solar System's future
Some 300 light-years away, there's a star that's very similar to our own, and it shows that our sun could devour its planets that get a wee bit too close. A team of astronomers, who've been monitoring star HIP68468 for years, have revealed the star's planet-ingesting past in a new study. What clued them in is HIP68468's lithium content, which is four times what you'd expect from a star that's six billion years old. Stars typically burn through their lithium content over time, so the element's abundance coupled with the presence of heat-resistant metals commonly found in rocky worlds can only be explained by the consumption of planets.
