Cosmic catastrophe: star swallows planet

Israelian, Garik; Ito, Takashi
Bibliographical reference

The Astronomical Herald (ISSN 0374-2466), Vol. 95, No. 9, p. 426 - 431 (2002)

Advertised on:
9
2002
Number of authors
2
IAC number of authors
0
Citations
0
Refereed citations
0
Description
We have found a large amount of 6Li in the atmosphere of the star HD 82943 which harbors two planets. From the amount of lithium in the star's atmosphere, we infer that there was a third planet (or several planets) that died in the hot interior of the star. The star could have swallowed a planet with a mass of about 2 Jupiters or 3 Earths. Based on our original publication (Israelian et al., 2001), here we introduce the several features and background motivation of this study to the general readers in Japan.