An Unfortunate Planet is Undergoing 'Extreme Evaporation,' Melting Under the Extreme Heat From its Star - by BrianKoberlein
An Unfortunate Planet is Undergoing “Extreme Evaporation,” Melting Under the Extreme Heat From its Star
FU Orionis is an unusual variable star. It was first seen as a magnitude 16 star in the early 1900s, but in the mid-1930s it rapidly brightened to a magnitude 9 star. The rapid brightening of a star was not unheard of, but in this case, FU Orionis did not fade to its original brightness. Since 1937 it has remained around magnitude 9, varying only slightly over time.
FU Orionis is a protostar system, meaning that it is still in the process of fully forming. Observations from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array show that it has two components surrounded by a protoplanetary disk, so it could eventually become a double-star system with planets that orbit both stars. One of the components has a mass about that of the Sun, while the other is small.
Young protostars of this size are known to experience violent flares, but the observed brightness shift was a trillion times more powerful than the strongest solar flares. Stellar flares also don’t last decades, so there must be some other cause for the dramatic brightness shift. The dominant theory is that FU Orionis is accreting material from the disk. The disk material would significantly heat as it’s absorbed, causing the system to brighten.
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