Overview
- A peer-reviewed paper by M. Yildiz in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society proposes the young Sun may have ingested a super-Earth and still carry its imprint inside the star.
- Using the open-source MESA stellar-evolution code, the study finds an accreted planet of about 5–10 Earth masses can produce changes that match helioseismic measurements of sound speed and convection-zone depth.
- The same models reproduce the Sun's unusually low surface lithium, linking the lithium depletion and interior structural mismatches to a single early engulfment event.
- Simulations show a super-Earth could survive passage through the Sun's outer layers with little mass loss, which implies enduring chemical and structural 'fingerprints' could remain detectable today.
- The authors urge independent helioseismic or other observational tests to confirm the predicted signatures and note the idea could explain why our system lacks the close-in super-Earths common around other stars.