Alien sun has smashing time sucking up planets Scientists believe they have captured direct evidence of a star feasting on its own planets for the first time. RW Aur, a binary star system located in the Auriga constellation 450 light years from Earth, has long puzzled astronomers. The light from one of its stars, RW Aur A, repeatedly dims and flickers back to life every …
Well our solar system started in a similar manner.
If some planetoid hadn't slammed into Earth, we wouldn't have the Moon.
And in the early days of our Solar System, everything was being bombarded by asteroids.
So pretty exciting times back then. Things have largely calmed down now, after a few billion years.
We should check back on this star in a billion years or two, to see how the situation evolves.
You need to remember the difference in scale between a star and a planet. In our solar system, with a not particularly large star, Sol accounts for 99.86% of the mass of the entire system, with the four gas giants accounting for just ~0.1386% of the total.
So, compared with a star, even gas giants are tiny and the amount of hydrogen they could deliver as potential fusion fuel is negligible. Rocky planets aren't even worth thinking about..
Having said that, there will be systems where you have a very small red dwarf orbited by a large brown dwarf, where the BD could be a significant fraction of the mass of the RD.
"In our solar system, with a not particularly large star, Sol accounts for 99.86% of the mass of the entire system, with the four gas giants accounting for just ~0.1386% of the total."
Or to put it another way "The solar system consists of the Sun, Jupiter and assorted debris"
Does it become effectively more fuel for the star or can elements remain?
The elements certainly remain. Everything will eventually find its way down to the fusion surface on the core. Only when the star is most of the way through its life will it start fusing anything heavier than hydrogen: first helium, then carbon, and maybe oxygen and nitrogen (or silicon/sulphur) if it's massive enough. Shortly after that (cosmically speaking) it goes bang.
When initially observed, the star used to dim for a short time, then be bright for a decade or so.
Since 1937 it's been dim for about a month, then bright again every 10-20 years or so.
In 2011 it was dim for about six months.
In mid-2014 it was dim for a little over two years.
In Jan 2017 it dimmed again, and hasn't brightened yet.
So the length of time spent "dim" is getting longer, while the period between dimming events is becoming shorter.
- The press release is a bit vague on the events between 1937 and 2011 though.
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