Astronomers should, in principle, be able to spot a planet being gobbled up by its star, according to the calculations of Alessandro Massarotti of Stonehill College in Easton, Massachusetts.
In the later phase of life, most stars swell to a size large enough to swallow an orbiting planet. In some cases, the meal should be detectable as a change in the star's rotation, but astronomers have had no idea how often the circumstances necessary for observing this will arise.
Massarotti used a public database of extrasolar planets to calculate that watching planet gobbling should be possible in about 1% of cases. He believes that this result backs up three possible detections made by him and others during a survey published in 2007.
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Astronomy: Meal deal. Nature 453, 700 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/453700e
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/453700e