Does Tidal Evolution Cause Stars to Eat Planets?

With the success of the Kepler mission, the viability of looking for planets via transits has reached maturity. However, Kepler is not the first intensive study. Previously, other observatories have employed transit searches. To increase the chances of discovery, studies often concentrated on large clusters in which thousands of stars could be observed simultaneously. Based [...]

Artists impression of the 'hot Jupiter' HD209458b. Credit: ESO.With the success of the Kepler mission, the viability of looking for planets via transits has reached maturity. However, Kepler is not the first intensive study. Previously, other observatories have employed transit searches. To increase the chances of discovery, studies often concentrated on large clusters in which thousands of stars could be observed simultaneously. Based on the percentage of stars with super Jovian planets in the Sun's vicinity, a Hubble observation run on the globular cluster 47 Tuc expected to find roughly 17 "hot Jupiters". Yet not a single one was found. Follow-up studies on other regions of 47 Tuc, published in 2005, also reported a similar lack of signals.Could the subtle effect of tidal forces have caused the planets to be consumed by their parent stars?(...)Read the rest of Does Tidal Evolution Cause Stars to ...