---
title: "Ravenous Stars Keep Devouring Habitable Planets"
description: "Scientists determined that a high percentage of stars consume what could have been habitable exoplanets, and they figured out how to tell if it happened."
date: "2021-08-31"
modified: "2021-08-31"
authors:
  - name: "Dan Robitzski"
    link: "https://futurism.com/authors/danrobitzski"
url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/stars-devouring-habitable-planets"
categories:
  - "Science & Energy"
tags:
  - "habitable exoplanets"
  - "space"
  - "the digest"
---

# Ravenous Stars Keep Devouring Habitable Planets

![Scientists determined that a high percentage of stars consume what could have been habitable exoplanets, and they figured out how to tell if it happened.](<https://futurism.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/planeteater.jpg>)
*\<em\>Image: Getty / Futurism\</em\>*

## Midnight Snack

The search for a habitable world where alien life could be thriving has hit a new roadblock. An extremely large number of stars, scientists say, keep swallowing their own planets as little snacks.

Not only do 30 to 35 percent of Sun-like stars end up consuming several of their own planets, but there are signs that astronomers can look for in order to determine which stars indulged in a little planetary snack, [according to research](<https://www.nature.com/articles/s41550-021-01451-8>) published Monday in *Nature Astronomy*. Not only is that valuable insight into how other star systems grow and behave, [but *Science Magazine* reports](<https://www.science.org/content/article/one-third-sunlike-stars-may-have-eaten-their-planets>) that it could help astronomers hunting for [habitable worlds](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/life-ocean-worlds-larger-earth>) identify which systems they can safely disregard.

## Iron Overload

After looking at 108 binary systems with Sun-like stars, the Astronomical Observatory of Padua scientists behind the study found that certain chemical signatures in stars can serve as clear indications that they consumed their planets.

"If a star is anomalously rich in iron but not in other elements such as carbon and oxygen, this can be interpreted as a signature of planetary engulfment," Padua researcher and lead study author Lorenzo Spina told *Science*.

This isn't the first time that researchers have looked into [planetary engulfment](<https://futurism.com/exoplanet-survive-swallowed-by-sun>), but this new study involved a much larger set of data than previous research, painting a far clearer picture of what's going on.

"This is clearly a strong trend," NASA astronomer Eric Mamajek, who didn't work on the study, told *Science Magazine*. "This will probably end up being one of the classic papers on this subject."

What this all means is that scientists probing the cosmos for a possibly-habitable world can save some time by looking at the stars first. If a good candidate star contains mainly lighter elements like hydrogen, helium, oxygen, and carbon, then it probably abstained from snacking on its planets.

**READ MORE:** [One-third of Sun-like stars may have eaten their planets](<https://www.science.org/content/article/one-third-sunlike-stars-may-have-eaten-their-planets>) \[*Science Magazine*\]

**More on habitable exoplanets:** *[Scientists: Life May Thrive on Ocean Worlds far Larger Than Earth](<https://futurism.com/the-byte/life-ocean-worlds-larger-earth>)*

## Author
Dan Robitzki is a senior reporter for Futurism, where he likes to cover AI, tech ethics, and medicine. He spends his extra time fencing and streaming games from Los Angeles, California.

### Author social links  
[Twitter](<https://x.com/danrobitzski>)