By Ron Cowen
Burp!
A star has been caught red-handed with the digested remains of one or more of its own planets.
Studying the light from the star HD 82943, known to have two planets, astronomers have found that its atmosphere contains a fragile lithium isotope. Thats surprising because stars make very little of the isotope, lithium-6, and any in HD 82943 at the stars birth would have burned up within 30 million years, when it was still young and extremely hot.