NASA’s Kepler K2 Finds A Dead Star Vaporizing The Mini ‘Planet’

Timothy Cushman

10/23/15

Earth Science / C Block 1, 3, 5 Mrs. McClellan

"NASA’s Kepler K2 Finds The Dead Star Vaporizing a Mini ‘Planet’." The Market Business. N.p., 23 Oct. 2015. Web. 23 Oct. 2015.

“We are for the first time witnessing a miniature “planet” ripped apart by intense gravity, being vaporized by starlight and raining rocky material onto its star,” said Andrew Vanderburg, graduate student from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. The article, “NASA’S KEPLER K2 FINDS DEAD STAR VAPORIZING THE MINI ‘PLANET,’” by Robert Nicholls talks about how through the use of the Kepler Telescope on the K2 mission, it has been proven that some small planets have been ripped apart by the intense gravity of white dwarf stars. Scientists found that an example of this happening by finding  a star where they noticed a decrease in the amount of light the star was emitting. In this case, it was happening every four to five hours. Since the dimming was coming in a mostly regular pattern scientists could conclude that an object was in orbit around this star. The scientists observed this system and found heavy elements on the surface of the star. Dr. John Johnson of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics says, “It’s like panning for gold – the heavy stuff sinks to the bottom. These metals should sink into the white dwarf’s interior” (paragraph 8), proving that there is something abnormal about this planetary system. Using the data, collected from the Kepler Telescope, they determined that the star was not ripping up comets and asteroids, which was their previous though. The star’s gravity was in fact ripping up small planetary objects.

        This article does not provide a large importance to the average person, but to astronomers and the scientific community it is very important. Being the first time man has witnessed a planet being ripped apart, we see how some of our perceptions of the universe can and may be wrong. Before seeing the proof of a star ripping apart a small planet, scientists who had observed stars with heavy elements on their surface thought that the elements were caused by asteroids and comets. This new evidence has shown how science is not always right and that some of the things we think may also be incorrect.

       

        This article was an interesting one to read and provoked many thoughts of mine. The article was just the right length and the author found a balance of quotes and facts which helped keep me interested. There was one arguably major thing missing and one small thing that I would have changed in the article. The first was, the author talked extensively about the actual details of the planet and star, but left out how the Kepler Telescope captured the images of this system. This would have allowed me to get an even better understanding of the mission that took place. The small thing that I would have changed is, there was one point, about the dimming of the star, that was made three times and the information was not used to support separate ideas so it got annoying having to read it multiple times.  Overall, the article was well written and kept the reader engaged.