Could Star Have Planets Pulling Material From It?

Bright Planets Sucking Material Out Of Star
Graphic Source: Ken, About Facts Net, Artist's Conception

A new theory has been born. Like all theories it depends on how you look at the evidence to come to the conclusion that the scientists did that developed this theory. Sometimes when I look at things I see there are other alternatives to those theories that may have been proposed. This certainly doesn't mean that a theory is wrong, it is just that I feel that other things could have led to the situation that the theory was developed from. By now you must be saying what the heck is he talking about, and I wouldn't blame you, so let me explain further. Just recently a new solar system was found that seemed to be operating contrary to all accepted scientific principles. It has always been thought that when a star that is the size of ours, the sun, gets older, it will expand into a red giant engulfing the nearest planets, including us and destroying them before it goes to its next phase, when it will become much smaller. The new solar system that was found is very interesting, because the star at the center was originally said to be about the same size as our Star. It has aready gone through its red giant phase and has shrunk and yet there are two planets circling it at a distance of less than 1,000,000 miles. According to previous accepted theory these planets should not exist, because they should have been destroyed when the star expanded, and yet here they are and not only that, they're practically on top of the star.

Something else was noticed about these planets that make the situation even stranger and that is that the planets seem to be sucking out matter from the star. Anyone that knows the theory about how these things are supposed to work, knows that this star should be the one taking material from any nearby bodies, so you can see how unusual this is. Here is what the scientists have to say about this. They say that the two planets are slightly smaller than Earth, that they are circling the star at extreme close range, but were not there were originally. They claim that these two planets must have been at least two Jupiter sized planets and much further out. They state that when the star became a red giant it must have taken much of the material from these two planets leaving only the cores and dragging them close to the star as it began to shrink. This sounds like a good story, but the problem is there are so many other things that could have happened and who can say at this point in time that this new theory is correct either partially or fully? I am all for new theories, because that is how science advances, but sometimes we have to take a step or two backwards before we can take a step forwards. This is caused by incorrect theories.

White Dwarf Star Compred To Normal Star
Photo Source: NASA & ESA

If we look at the situation in this case, we find out that the astronomers were picking up something very unusual about these two planets and that was that they were giving off their own light. Usually there are two ways that new planets are discovered. The first way is by calculating a wobble in the home Star. Usually when a star wobbles it is because it has planets that are pulling on it and scientists can calculate how big some of these planets might be, or the total mass involved by the amount of wobble. The second way that planets are discovered is when they drift between the telescope and their home star, thus cutting down on some of the light emanating from that star. Planets do not usually give off their own light because they have their sun behind them which overpowers everything. If we look at the situation, we have to consider if it might be possible that what we are seeing are not two planets? This means that we might be looking at something else, and that something else could be something yet undiscovered. There are other possibilities, perhaps some elements in these planets are irradiated by radiation from the star, making them glow hotter than the star itself. Maybe the two bodies that we are looking at are not planets, but material thrown out from the star? There is also the possibility that this star did destroy all of its planets, and while it was shrinking, captured two bodies that were passing by. Here is another theory that I have, and while I don't think it would probably be true, it may still have to be considered. The theory is that there are two small black holes near the star that are sucking material from the star and what we are seeing are white holes where the material is being dumped out. Some scientists believe that for every black hole there is one of these white holes. I guess that all material that goes into a black hole, if such a hole exists, has to come out somewhere.

The white hole theory would explain the bright light that can outshine the light of the star itself and along with it, the black hole would explain how the material was being sucked off of the star. A neutron star's material is so dense that a sphere the size of Manhattan would be 500,000 times denser than the Earth. Neutron stars are also usually very hot. Perhaps the two bodies that are being seen are not planets but neutron stars? The problem with this hypothesis is that neutron stars usually only have a radius of about 12 km, but they also usually contain up to two solar masses. If these two bodies when neutron stars then they would probably be the biggest ones ever found. This fact puts this theory on the back burner.

Red Giant Star Swallowing Up Planets
Graphic Source: Ken, About Facts Net, Artist's Conception

It is always interesting when we find something that does not conform to modern theory. In the blink of an eye, finding this solar system changed everything. It was as if we suddenly found that there were things in space that were traveling faster than the speed of light. While some scientists suspect this, solid proof is yet to come forward. For all we know, what we are looking at might be a three-star system composed of two tiny stars and one white dwarf star. Originally the system may have had three stars of varying sizes. It is not so unusual to see a triple star system, even though binary systems of two stars are probably more common. It could be that as the biggest star became a red giant and expanded and then began to shrink, it pulled the smaller stars to it. Perhaps this system was formed in such a way that the three stars were too close to each other for planets to exist, because of tidal forces?

I guess we could speculate all day about the system that was found, but we would never know if any of these ideas were correct. It will probably take several generations before scientists are able to figure out exactly what went on with this solar system. Even after all of that time, there will always be the chance that they have come up with the wrong conclusion. This is exactly how science works, but somehow over time it always seems to correct itself. We are gathering more information now than we ever have before and there is so much of it that it is getting harder to sift through what we have. We probably need more efficient computer programs that will do a lot of this work for us. This probably will entail more advanced artificial intelligence techniques.