Study suggests the Sun may have swallowed a super-Earth

A new study led by Professor Mutlu Yildiz of Ege University suggests the young Sun billions of years ago may have engulfed a super-Earth-sized planet with mass equal to 5 to 10 Earths. The chemical fingerprints could still be detectable today. This theory could explain the Sun's unusually low lithium levels and discrepancies in its internal structure revealed by helioseismology.

We thought planetary engulfment might affect the solar structure but did not expect the calculations to converge on such a specific super-Earth mass range.