Research Suggests Planet-Devouring Star Likely Indicate Limestone Debris, Possible Fossil Marine Life?

A planet-devouring star has been found through the W. M. Keck Observatory. A team of researchers led by Carl Melis from the University of California in San Diego has uncovered a planet-like body which is believed to have been covered with limestone, with surface layers devoured by a deceased host star. Aside from using a new way of identifying the planets' chemical composition in order to study their internal structure, it was also discovered that the rocky material accreted by the star may consist of minerals linked to marine life on Earth.

With the aid of the previous analysis of the white dwarf SDSS J1043+0855, the researchers used HIRES instrument of Keck Observatory that is fitted to the 10-meter Keck I telescope, including the data from NASA's Hubble Space Telescope to characterize and measure the material being formed by the star.

The study about the planet-devouring star revealed that the white dwarf seems to accrete the outermost layers of a recognized, rocky extrasolar body from its remaining planetary system. According to Melis, the analysis has enabled them to calculate the large quantity of the rocky material while being accreted and filtered by the atmosphere of the star in real time,  Astronomy reported.

Although the finding offers a new concept for scientists to analyze the chemical structure and composition of rocky planets, the likelihood that life could have been a contributing factor to the hypothesized mineralogy has definitely caught their interest. Based on the findings, the planet-devouring star accretes the surface of a body with large improvements of carbon. Such characteristic, along with mild improvements of oxygen and calcium, leads to the possibility of the material that comes in the form of a calcium-carbonate - a mineral linked to shelled marine organisms on Earth.

Although there are still questions surrounding the existence calcium-carbonate, the research paper provides proof that accreted material is almost definitely coming from the layers of the planet-like object, with the white dwarf showing potential planets outside the solar system,  Phys.Org reported.