Burning lithium inside a star (artist's impression)

Artist’s impression of a baby star still surrounded by a protoplanetary disc in which planets are forming. Using ESO’s very successful HARPS spectrograph, a team of astronomers has found that Sun-like stars which host planets have destroyed their lithium much more efficiently than planet-free stars. This finding does not only shed light on the low levels of this chemical element in the Sun, solving a long-standing mystery, but also provides astronomers with a very efficient way to pick out the stars most likely to host planets. It is not clear what causes the lithium to be destroyed. The general idea is that the planets or the presence of the protoplanetary disc disturb the interior of the star, bringing the lithium deeper down into the star than usual, into regions where the temperature is so hot that it is destroyed.

Credit:

ESO/L. Calçada

About the Image

Id:eso0942a
Type:Artwork
Release date:11 November 2009
Related releases:eso0942
Related announcements:ann1046
Size:3000 x 2000 px

About the Object

Name:Protoplanetary disc
Type:Unspecified : Star : Circumstellar Material : Disk : Protoplanetary
Category:Illustrations

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