A newly discovered star, 30 times larger than the sun, has an unexpected chemical composition

Newly Found Star J0524-0336 Has Unusually High Lithium Levels, Posing Major Questions for Astronomers

TL;DR

Astronomers have identified a massive star, J0524-0336, about 30,000 light-years away, which is 30 times larger than the sun and contains 100,000 times more lithium. This unexpected lithium abundance challenges current models of stellar evolution, as stars typically fuse light elements into heavier ones over time. The star’s high lithium content may be due to an unknown phase of stellar evolution or the absorption of a lithium-rich planet or nearby star. Researchers continue to study J0524-0336 to unravel whether these anomalies are due to stellar interaction, internal processes, or an undiscovered mechanism.

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Astronomers have found a newly identified star that is 30 times larger than the sun, which could lead to a significant revision of current stellar evolution theories. The star, known as J0524-0336 and located about 30,000 light-years away from Earth, has an unusually high amount of lithium compared to the sun or other stars of a similar age.

This challenges our understanding of how stars create heavier elements through nuclear fusion since lithium, being a light element, is typically expected to diminish in favor of heavier elements like carbon and oxygen during this process.

J0524-0336 not only has a high lithium content but also shows a notable scarcity of heavy elements.

Astronomers discovered J0524-0336 while searching for older stars within the Milky Way. The star is in the advanced stages of its life cycle, which classifies it as an “evolved star.” It is expanding in size, which also increases its brightness.

Following the discovery, researchers used spectroscopy to analyze the star’s chemical makeup. Spectroscopy allows scientists to determine a star’s composition and element ratios by examining the light it emits, as different elements have unique light emission and absorption patterns.

“We found that J0524-0336 contains 100,000 times more lithium than the sun does at its current age,” said team leader and University of Florida researcher Rana Ezzeddine in a statement. “This amount challenges the prevailing models of how stars evolve and may suggest a previously unknown mechanism for lithium production or retention in stars.”

An unknown stage in stellar evolution — or something else?

The team has some theories about why J0524-0336 has such an unusual chemical makeup. One possibility is that the star is in a previously unobserved phase of stellar evolution. Another hypothesis is that as the star expanded, it may have absorbed an orbiting planet or nearby star that was rich in lithium, which would explain its high lithium content. If this absorption occurred recently, J0524-0336 might not have had enough time to fuse the lithium into heavier elements.

Ezzeddine speculates that the lithium levels in J0524-0336 are so high that both proposed mechanisms could be at work.

Further observation is required to determine the exact cause of this anomaly—whether it’s one of the proposed mechanisms, both, or an entirely different factor.

Ezzeddine and her team plan to keep studying J0524-0336 and hope to conduct continuous monitoring to see if and how its composition changes over time.

“If we find a build-up of dust in the star’s circumstellar disk, or the ring of debris and materials being ejected from the star, this would clearly indicate a mass loss event, such as a stellar interaction,” Ezzeddine concluded. “If we don’t observe such a disk, we could conclude that the lithium enrichment is happening due to a process, still to be discovered, taking place inside the star instead.”

The team’s research is published on the research repository arXiv and is set to be featured in The Astrophysical Journal.