Sun-like star Kronos shows signs of having ingested 15 Earth masses worth of rocky planets, prompting Princeton astronomers to nickname it for the Titan who ate his young. This artist’s rendering of the diverse rocky planets in our galaxy hints at what Kronos’s planets might have looked like before the star enveloped them. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt (SSC-Caltech)
Sun-like star Kronos shows signs of having ingested 15 Earth masses worth of rocky planets, prompting astronomers to name it after the Titan who ate his children. ‘Kronos’ is enhanced in metals and other rock-forming elements but not in volatiles, prompting a team to conclude that it absorbed as much as 15 Earth masses worth of rocky planets. Its twin, ‘Krios,’ does not show this unusual pattern of enhancement.
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