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> Their results favour a scenario in which the young Sun engulfed a super-Earth around 5–10 times the mass of Earth Given the state of the early solar system,

> Their results favour a scenario in which the young Sun engulfed a super-Earth around 5–10 times the mass of Earth Given the state of the early solar system, it would be surprising if the Sun didn't swallow a lot of metallic and carbonaceous rocks and pebbles. But it seems unclear to me how the researchers would distinguish between one super-Earth and >10^10 smaller rocks? Chemically I feel the two would be largely the same.

cfiggers 22d ago
That's easy, they'll check whether there's one big fingerprint vs >10^10 little tiny fingerprints and conclude accordingly \j
- amelius 21d ago
  [flagged]
  - rotringlvr 21d ago
    [dead]
  - snovv_crash 21d ago
    You sound bitter about this.
omnicognate 22d ago
> Researchers also found that such a world could survive its passage through the Sun's outer layers while losing very little mass, which suggests that planets may leave detectable fingerprints inside their host stars long after they have disappeared. So I guess the large size would have permitted it to smuggle stuff into the core that would have just vaporised in the corona if carried by many smaller objects?
- monster_truck 21d ago
  Sounds reasonable to me. But also what the fuck happens to the core of such a planet when that happens? We aren't actually sure what gave our core the spin it has, right? I'm not fully awake yet but I think it's plain where I'm going with this.
  - andrewflnr 21d ago
    It's not plain to me where you're going. But the answer about the core of a planet engulfed by the sun is that it vaporizes eventually, just not right away.
  - frutiger 21d ago
    > We aren't actually sure what gave our core the spin it has, right? We are, it’s from the conservation of angular momentum. The material that made our planet also had a non-zero angular momentum.
    - monster_truck 21d ago
      No we aren't. That's a theory that barely fits the lower bound of what we estimate the spin of the core to be
bell-cot 21d ago
This, but how do they rule out the extra stuff landing in the sun much earlier - when the solar system was still a pre-solar nebula, and which bits would end up where (sun vs. planets vs. whatever) was far from settled?
hydrogen7800 21d ago
>But it seems unclear to me how the researchers would distinguish between one super-Earth and >10^10 smaller rocks? I have a similar feeling when life on earth is suggested to be "alien", arriving via debris in the solar system as the earth formed. Isn't everything in the solar system coalesced from the same debris?
- jojobas 21d ago
  The life-bearing debris would have to arrive quite some time after formation of Earth, as it was molten. Surviving atmospheric entry is hard, surviving after landing in lava is impossible.
  - gohomeloser 21d ago
    [dead]
  - hydrogen7800 21d ago
    I was going to expand on my comment about the difference between alien and non-alien being a difference only in time. It's all from the same stuff.
    - post-it 21d ago
      It makes a difference to our understanding of the conditions under which life can form.
  - BurningFrog 21d ago
    If life-bearing debris exists, it would surely be floating around the galaxy forever.
- tracerbulletx 21d ago
  That always felt like a deus ex machina answer to me too. We don't know exactly how abiogenesis happened on earth so some people just like to cut off the chain of causation with the idea of, "it was seeded"... but then how did abiogenesis happen elsewhere? I don't think that's a very popular theory among anyone who knows what they're talking about though.
andrewflnr 21d ago
I don't fully follow (not being an astrophysicist), but it seems like the depth of the metallic material within the star matters a lot for their model. A planet can "bury" it (their word) a lot deeper than small rocks by physically sinking in before it gets destroyed. Sections 4.2 and 4.5 (among others I assume) in the actual paper linked above talk about this stuff.

cfiggers 22d ago

That's easy, they'll check whether there's one big fingerprint vs >10^10 little tiny fingerprints and conclude accordingly \j

amelius 21d ago
[flagged]
- rotringlvr 21d ago
  [dead]
- snovv_crash 21d ago
  You sound bitter about this.

omnicognate 22d ago

> Researchers also found that such a world could survive its passage through the Sun's outer layers while losing very little mass, which suggests that planets may leave detectable fingerprints inside their host stars long after they have disappeared. So I guess the large size would have permitted it to smuggle stuff into the core that would have just vaporised in the corona if carried by many smaller objects?

monster_truck 21d ago
Sounds reasonable to me. But also what the fuck happens to the core of such a planet when that happens? We aren't actually sure what gave our core the spin it has, right? I'm not fully awake yet but I think it's plain where I'm going with this.
- andrewflnr 21d ago
  It's not plain to me where you're going. But the answer about the core of a planet engulfed by the sun is that it vaporizes eventually, just not right away.
- frutiger 21d ago
  > We aren't actually sure what gave our core the spin it has, right? We are, it’s from the conservation of angular momentum. The material that made our planet also had a non-zero angular momentum.
  - monster_truck 21d ago
    No we aren't. That's a theory that barely fits the lower bound of what we estimate the spin of the core to be

bell-cot 21d ago

This, but how do they rule out the extra stuff landing in the sun much earlier - when the solar system was still a pre-solar nebula, and which bits would end up where (sun vs. planets vs. whatever) was far from settled?

hydrogen7800 21d ago

>But it seems unclear to me how the researchers would distinguish between one super-Earth and >10^10 smaller rocks? I have a similar feeling when life on earth is suggested to be "alien", arriving via debris in the solar system as the earth formed. Isn't everything in the solar system coalesced from the same debris?

jojobas 21d ago
The life-bearing debris would have to arrive quite some time after formation of Earth, as it was molten. Surviving atmospheric entry is hard, surviving after landing in lava is impossible.
- gohomeloser 21d ago
  [dead]
- hydrogen7800 21d ago
  I was going to expand on my comment about the difference between alien and non-alien being a difference only in time. It's all from the same stuff.
  - post-it 21d ago
    It makes a difference to our understanding of the conditions under which life can form.
- BurningFrog 21d ago
  If life-bearing debris exists, it would surely be floating around the galaxy forever.
tracerbulletx 21d ago
That always felt like a deus ex machina answer to me too. We don't know exactly how abiogenesis happened on earth so some people just like to cut off the chain of causation with the idea of, "it was seeded"... but then how did abiogenesis happen elsewhere? I don't think that's a very popular theory among anyone who knows what they're talking about though.

andrewflnr 21d ago

I don't fully follow (not being an astrophysicist), but it seems like the depth of the metallic material within the star matters a lot for their model. A planet can "bury" it (their word) a lot deeper than small rocks by physically sinking in before it gets destroyed. Sections 4.2 and 4.5 (among others I assume) in the actual paper linked above talk about this stuff.