Astronomers from the Princeton University have discovered sun-like twin stars which feed on its own rocky planets. The twin stars, which are located at 350 light years from the Earth, are around four billion years old.
Newly discovered stars HD 240430 and HD 240429 are named after the Greek mythical characters Kronos and Krios. Kronos, the Titan character, is infamous for eating his children, Poseidon (planet Neptune), Hades (Pluto), and his three daughters.
The astronomers believe that rocky planets which weighs equal to the mass of 15 Earths were eaten up by the stars. The surface of Kronos is made up of heavier elements like magnesium, aluminum, silicon, iron, chromium, yttrium, the major components of a rock formation. Other lighter elements like carbon, oxygen, nitrogen, and potassium are also found in the star in its gaseous form. The scientific explanation, according to the laws of chemistry, states that the heavier elements in Kronos were formed after the lighter elements.
According to Eurekalert reports, Semyeong Oh, a graduate student at Princeton University said, "Most stars that are as metal-rich as Kronos have all the other elements enhanced at a similar level, whereas Kronos has volatile elements suppressed, which makes it really weird in the general context of stellar abundance patterns."
Kronos and Krios are yellow G-type of dwarf stars which are at a distance of two light years from each other. They orbit each other at a duration of 10,000 years. The astronomers regard this as a huge distance between stars of a binary system.
The researchers have also found the difference between the chemical compositions of Kronos and Krios. Kronos' feeding of rocky planets is regarded as the major reason for the difference in their chemical composition.
Oh commented, "All of the elements that would make up a rocky planet are exactly the elements that are engulfed on Kronos, and the volatile elements are not enhanced, so that provides a strong argument for a planetary engulfment scenario, instead of something else."
