The Star That Ate Its Planets

What are the signs.....? Star bloat?

The star and its binary partner have radically different spectra. The anomaly in the spectra of one star is an excess of elements that vaporize above 1200K, equivalent to the amount of "minerals" contained in 15 earth masses.

ANALOGY -- Like analyzing flatulence: if it smells like frijoles, then somebody ate beans.

Similar technique applies to suns and their diet(s).

Our own Sun didn't eschew metals.

The iron (~0.1% solar mass) alone in our Sun has the mass of more than 300 Earths.

In astronomical terms, the sun is ~1% metals. That is more than 5 times the combined mass of the planet's in our solar system.

Now who looks gluttonous?

I think the issue is not the amount of metals in the star, it's the excess in percentage of metals over its binary partner. They expect the binary pair to have similar spectra, i.e., the same percentage of metals to volatile elements.

Seems like a big difference in metalicity of a binary pair would suggest the stars being brought together from regions of different conditions as a more likely scenario than evolving in pretty much the same region but one ends up swallowing a bunch of planets while the other totally abstains.

....but perhaps that is just a flawed conjecture on my part.

Also, at the temperatures in stars, all elements have gone a step beyond volitizing. Everything AFAIK has become a plasma.

Kronos, that's where the Klingons live. Doesn't surprise me they eat their young.

That may have started with Kahless, in the 9th century.