Star is caught devouring planet

Found via Naked Capitalism.

Astronomers have found evidence for a planet being devoured by its star, yielding insights into the fate that will befall Earth in billions of years.

The team uncovered the signature of a planet that had been "eaten" by looking at the chemistry of the host star.

They also think a surviving planet around this star may have been kicked into its unusual orbit by the destruction of a neighbouring world.

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"A similar fate may await the inner planets in our solar system, when the Sun becomes a red giant and expands all the way out to Earth's orbit some five billion years from now," said co-author Prof Alexander Wolszczan from Pennsylvania State University in the US.