The Star That Shouldn't Exist

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One of strangest discoveries in astronomy is one you've probably never heard of - Przybylski’s Star. This is a star that defies natural explanation and has many wondering whether this could be evidence of alien life, a star being deliberately "salted" by some advanced civilization. Join us today to learn more.
Written & presented by Prof. David Kipping, edited by Jorge Casas. Special thanks to Jason Wright for fact checking and for his wonderful blog that inspired this video - sites.psu.edu/astrowright/prz....
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THANK-YOU to D. Smith, M. Sloan, L. Sanborn, C. Bottaccini, D. Daughaday, A. Jones, S. Brownlee, N. Kildal, Z. Star, E. West, T. Zajonc, C. Wolfred, L. Skov, G. Benson, A. De Vaal, M. Elliott, B. Daniluk, S. Vystoropskyi, S. Lee, Z. Danielson, C. Fitzgerald, C. Souter, M. Gillette, T. Jeffcoat, J. Rockett, D. Murphree, T. Donkin, K. Myers, A. Schoen, K. Dabrowski, J. Black, R. Ramezankhani, J. Armstrong, K. Weber, S. Marks, L. Robinson, S. Roulier, B. Smith, J. Cassese, J. Kruger, S. Way, P. Finch, S. Applegate, L. Watson, E. Zahnle, N. Gebben, J. Bergman, E. Dessoi, C. Macdonald, M. Hedlund, P. Kaup, C. Hays, W. Evans, D. Bansal, J. Curtin, J. Sturm, RAND Corp., M. Donovan, N. Corwin, M. Mangione, K. Howard, L. Deacon, G. Metts, R. Provost, B. Sigurjonsson, G. Fullwood, B. Walford, J. Boyd, N. De Haan, J. Gillmer, R. Williams, E. Garland, A. Leishman, A. Phan Le, R. Lovely, M. Spoto, A. Steele, K. Yarbrough, A. Cornejo, D. Compos, F. Demopoulos, G. Bylinsky, J. Werner, B. Pearson, S. Thayer, T. Edris, B. Seeley, F. Blood, M. O'Brien, P. Muzyka, D. Lee, J. Sargent, M. Czirr, F. Krotzer, I. Williams, J. Sattler, J. Smallbon, B. Reese, J. Yoder, O. Shabtay, X. Yao, S. Saverys, M. Pittelli, A. Nimmerjahn & C. Seay.
REFERENCES
► Przybylski, A. 1977, "Is iron present in the atmosphere of HD 101065?", MNRAS 178, 71: ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/197...
► Wolff S. & Hagen, W. 1976, "The magnetic field of HD 101065", PASP 88, 119: ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/197...
► Gopka, V. et al. 2008, "Identification of absorption lines of short half-life actinides in the spectrum of Przybylski's star (HD 101065)", KPCB 24, 89: ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/200...
► Whitemire, D. & Wright, D. 1980, "Nuclear waste spectrum as evidence of technological extraterrestrial civilizations", Icarus 42, 149: ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/198...
MUSIC
Licensed by SoundStripe.com (SS) [shorturl.at/ptBHI], Artlist.io, via CC Attribution License (creativecommons.org/licenses/...) or with permission from the artist.
0:00: Arc - Hill
0:30: Falls - Ripley
2:07: Cylinder Seven - Chris Zabriskie
6:39: There is But One Good - Hill
24:32: Y - Joachim Heinrich
CHAPTERS
0:00 A Peculiar Star
2:39 Spectroscopic Strangeness
5:25 It Gets Weirder
5:50 LMNT
7:15 Impossible Chemistry
9:44 Explanations
13:09 Aliens
16:12 Outro & Credits
#Aliens #Astrobiology #CoolWorlds

[@CoolWorldsLab]

Thanks for watching, and thanks to LMNT for sponsoring us. Make sure you hit DrinkLMNT.com/coolworlds for a free sample pack with any order. Let me know your ideas about this weird star - what do YOU think is going on? One idea I didn’t discuss is that of a companion neutron star enriching the atmosphere through a high energy wind, which Gopka proposed (ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008AIPC.1016..460G). This idea has been excluded by radial velocity measurements though (ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008A%26A...490.1109M) hence why I didn’t include here. Curious to hear your imaginative solutions! EDIT: A few of you asked about the total mass of these radioactive elements (actinides). I haven't seen this calculated anywhere, but I will attempt a *rough* calculation here. Gopka (ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2008KPCB...24...89G) doesn't provide abundance measurements but suggests that the actinide abundance is comparable to that of the lanthanides. In the same paper, the lanthanides are quoted as being 10,000x more abundant than that found in the Sun. For the Sun, the lanthanides have a total abundance of ~2*10^(-5)% (periodictable.com/Properties/A/SolarAbundance.an.log.html). So x10000 gives an abundance of ~0.2% for Przybylski’s Star. Now that's just the number count relative to other elements, not a mass. To get a mass, let's assume they are only present in the photosphere, and let's further assume the photosphere has a similar depth to that of the Sun (~100km). The photosphere volume is then pi*R*^2*100km = 5.5 * 10^23 m^3 (since R* = 1.9 RSun). The mean density of the Sun's photosphere is about 0.3 g/m^3 so assuming the same here, the photosphere has a total mass of 1.6 * 10^20 kg. Now we can use the abundance, but remember its by particle number, not mass. So the mass fraction will be 0.002*245 / (0.002*245 + 0.75*1 + 0.23*4), where the 1 is hydrogen, 4 is helium and 245 is roughly in the middle of the actinides (mass numbers). This gives 0.23, so thus the total mass of actinides in the photosphere would be around 0.23*1.6*10^20 kg = 3.7 * 10^19 kg. That's about 4% the mass of the asteroid Ceres. Obviously, this is very rough, and assuming a Sun-like photosphere, and actinides only in the photosphere, so take with a pinch of salt, but at least gives you an idea about what scale we're dealing with here. (Feel free to chime in if you have a better calculation than this rough one!)

[@TurntableTV]

They only ship to Canada and US.

[@levirivers2772]

❤, I propose that this star swallowed a rouge gas giant that had been accumulating heavy elements from supernove and the in-falling materials slowed the rotation rate altering the photospheres chemistry. The higher luminosity has the pressure to keep heavy elements suspended above the core churning in the photosphere by hydrogen bonds that are temporary and magnetically lifting material that would normally sink in hydrogen plasma... I can't prove it but it's a process that can be imagined and possibly worked on by people willing to dope hydrogen plasma with heavy elements to see if hydrogen plasma can be a lifting agent for metals in a solar environment. 👍🏻

[@TomiLoveless]

Revelation 16:8-9 8. The fourth angel poured out his bowl on the sun, and the sun was allowed to scorch people with fire. 9 They were seared by the intense heat and they cursed the name of God, who had control over these plagues, but they refused to repent and glorify him.

[@uktenatsila9168]

Wish that I could provide educated thoughts on the subject. Truely fascinating. Great to see that you stay in shape. Don't want to key bord coach you but, I am going to. Weight's after striking workout or on a separate day. You don't want to be tight or stiff. Keep chin down and hands up. Shift your shoulders when you throw but, stay balanced. And use your foot work. Step in as you throw and change angle after the 2nd blow. Thank you again for the awesome informative videos.

[@warlock64c]

@@levirivers2772 The problem with natural explanations, is that there is no process to get these elements to a hypothetical island of stability naturally. Many of these elements don't have a natural process for their creation period. Assuming our information is correct and these elements exist, there's no reason to make so many leaps of logic to try and force a natural explanation. We know life exists in the universe (we exist), we know intelligent life can create these elements (we've done it), the only question left would be why?

[@laurachapple6795]

It's a brave man who admits to the whole internet that he's seen 'Superman IV'.

[@SMacCuUladh]

i've see it ten times when I was a kid.

[@oldgreybeard5301]

The Film That Shall Not Be Named. Longer title for sure. But the memory of....that film....haunts me to this day.

[@ahemschmeyer]

We’ll I was dumb kid when I watched Superman IV so you can’t blame me

[@CoolWorldsLab]

It’s a terrible film, but hey, it’s moment was now!

[@JaGGeR-]

If you think that's brave imagine how brave the guy who signed off on putting it out is.

[@sailorgreg1184]

Hey, I'm Polish. Your pronounciation of Mr Przybylski name was absolutely perfect! Thank you for the effort!

[@CoolWorldsLab]

Phew

[@chriskelso723]

​@@CoolWorldsLablol

[@norddorian5791]

No it wasnt but it was good enoguh for an english speaker

[@NeutroniummAlchemist]

But it was different a few times. Usually it was 3 syllables, but sometimes it was 4. But I'm only half Polish what do I know.

[@sameshitdifferentsmell1305]

I was thinking the same thing just to get it out of your mouth without stumbling over your own tongue you are doing alright mate

[@Ice_Karma]

10:36 In medicine, there's a saying, "If you hear hoofbeats, look for horses, not zebras": Uncommon symptoms are more likely uncommon symptoms of a common illness than common symptoms of an uncommon illness.

[@pellestorck3776]

Unless you're in the savanna..

[@nornalhumsn7167]

You mean love right?

[@jdrmanmusiqking]

Exactly context matters. People who live by strict rules have no understanding of nuance​@@pellestorck3776

[@pineapplepenumbra]

However, as there are a lot of uncommon illnesses/conditions, there is a relatively high chance that you will come across someone with a rare condition. Statistics, eh?

[@llkg9]

Which I guess is why it took all of my many doctors and specialists 29 YEARS to accurately diagnose my uncommon medical conditions - even when paramedics, nurses, and I had suggested the correct diagnoses numerous times along the way! Instead, I'm now disabled from their failure to treat correctly, and permanently injured from meds they exposed me to that I never needed. And there are many others in similar situations. The moral here: If it SOUNDS like horses but the locals tell you they SAW a zebra, look for both!

[@Erikaaaaaaaaaaaaa]

Super underrated aspect of your videos is how good the editing has gotten! It's just been improving and improving. All your videos have a very characteristic "feel" to them, but that theme and identity has only gotten stronger with time :)

[@TechBearSeattle]

The question that first presents itself with the salting hypothesis is... how much material would be needed to change the spectra of a star in a way that is consistent with what is seen in Przybylski's Star?

[@UteChewb]

And if salted, could it be part of an isotope production process by some method unknown to us? Perhaps they can somehow create high Z stable elements.

[@davidwebb4451]

Also my understanding is that the lifetime of A type stars is around a billion years hence any aliens which are native to that system would have had to have evolved firstly into complex life and then into an intelligent technological civilisation in an astonishingly short time compared to what happened on Earth. Of course the aliens might not have evolved in that system but instead have colonised it after evolving elsewhere though I'd have thought that an A type star with its short lifespan would be an unlikely prime target for colonisation for a species which evolved in a system around a cooler more long lived star. Or could salting a star in this way somehow extend its life ?

[@lolmao500]

Probably a LOT... so if aliens are doing this... they are way way way more advanced than us

[@gameeverything816]

Another question is why does it have super low iron content? Are the aliens grabbing iron from the star lol

[@jhtrq1465]

@@UteChewb Processus r, nuclear spallation can produce those heavy elements consistently. There is no known close supernova from this star who could have lead to such events, but the interaction (meaning a relatively close fly-by 1-3ly away) with an accreting blach hole or neutron star would do the trick. Those disk generate a lot of high energy cosmics rays. Far more plausible hypothesis than aliens dumping asteroid-sized nuclear trash into their star.

[@scott6129]

"It's never ever aliens, it's always dust."

[@iAnasazi]

Until it's aliens.

[@Sakurajima616]

Or a flying god potato with arrsse cheekks.

[@bubbalover71]

​@@iAnasazi It's never aliens.

[@huski1]

@@bubbalover71 Until its aliens

[@peacepoet1947]

But the elements found in the star is out of place. Could the dust contain those elements?

[@doublepinger]

Mr. Narrator, I think you should go on to read e-books or narrate horror games or something. The intent to pronounce Przybylski is clear and sharp that I can't imagine your voice outside of a narrative setting. The pace, the tone, the "accent I almost hear but I'm probably just hearing things". A mix of "comforting" but "hold on I don't know this guy!", and yet not with an annoyance or drama, lacking ham-iness, or dare to say, a pretense of... anything. That's what seems like what it is, like we just observed half the universe explode and you're worried about whether you'll make it to a store before it ceases to exist.

[@Danomite99]

There are only a few channels in my plethora of subs that I watch the day they come out. This is one of them. Keep up the great content

[@NaumRusomarov]

Oh. An excellent intro into magnetic Ap stars. They were the topic of my phd.

[@CoolWorldsLab]

Awesome! Would love to hear your thoughts on this enigma...

[@deanlawson6880]

Wow.. @@CoolWorldsLab Boy what an interesting and deeply fascinating discussion that would be!!

[@Rivenburg-xd5yf]

Ah, the man to ask the weird questions of: Our planet has a large amount of U235-U238 and Gold, Bismuth etc... Leading to the notion our sun has these heavy elements also. If a sun such as this AP star has massive amounts of these heavy elements also AND has magnetic/electric fields almost 200 times stronger then our sun's, is it possible that A: these "artificial" elements are being created naturally in an electric collider like process? or B: The spectra is being falsified by the magnetic/electric fields?

[@spacetomato1020]

Can I read it?

[@BishopStars]

Another star impacted and merged, slowing the rotation and producing exotic elements.

[@Iamthelolrus]

How much "stuff" would you need to dump into a star to see a difference? A planet mass? I'm just wondering if it is a feasible amount or if we are talking about dismantling solar systems?

[@GypsySun-mi7wi]

My question as well.

[@DreamskyDance]

Yeah, i am wondering too... I guess it could be calculated, take the mass of the star, find out how much is 1 % and that is probably the amount you need to see the difference. Idk, in complete layman's view everything < 1% seems kinda small so probably no difference. But i really dont know, just guessing XD

[@AndrewBlucher]

The composition of the sun is 73.46% hydrogen 24.85% helium 0.77% oxygen 0.29% carbon 0.16% iron 0.12% neon 0.09% nitrogen 0.07% silicon 0.05% magnesium 0.04% sulphur The sun is about 330,000 times the mass of Earth, so there's (does quick mental arithmetic) about 120 times the mass of Earth of Sulphur alone. That's a lot of Sulphur. If the star is being salted, it's a "shipload" of salt! I'll have to look up the paper to see the elemental abundances.

[@useazebra]

Iron in our sun is only 32 ppm, or 0.0032%, and we can detect it easily. But that is still about 3x the total amount of iron in Earth. So the mass fraction may be small, but the sheer quantity seems prohibitive--even for the most outrageously advanced (hypothetical) aliens. The "island of stability" option is much more promising.

[@thesenamesaretaken]

​@@DreamskyDance​ I don't know the numbers but 1% is way more than needed. 1% is a vast amount in astronomical terms. For scale, 1% of the sun's mass is about 10,000 times the Earth's mass, or 10 times the mass of Jupiter. I didn't find answers on google but using stock numbers (and assuming I did it right) a naive calculation shows that our sun will burn a whole 1% of its own mass in hydrogen throughout the next 5 billion years of its life. More to the point though, these elusive elements need only be relatively abundant in the outer regions of the star, they don't have to be a large % of its entire mass. Just as you don't need the quantity of gases in the atmosphere of Earth to be a large % of the Earth's mass for it to be measurable from a distance.

[@Jizzlewobbwtfcus]

FASCINATING stuff without the fluff. I love your delivery, no pandering to the lowest common denominator but just explaining it how it is. I'm sure you could go into far more detail but I think you hit the perfect balance of actual science and what people will understand while at the same time being able to learn something. This is my new favourite channel. I also love you giving credit to MelodySheep. That channel's creators are incredible bringing deep science to the masses in an amazing visual way. You got a new subber : ]

[@profparksphd]

1) The alien megastructure idea was a joke made by Jason Wright that the media than blew out of proportion. 2) The cause of the dips is not dust as there is no infrared excess. The current understanding is the dips are caused by cometary material on the outer edge of the stellar system. This is still unexpected for a number of reasons. The mysteries of Boyajian’s star are not nearly as settled as you seem to indicate.

[@djglxxii]

Anything out there that appears to be a unique object should raise suspicion. Really surprised more attention hasn't been placed on this star.

[@HaukeLaging]

This is about to change now... 😉

[@delphicdescant]

A decent amount of attention *has* been placed on this star. The issue is that if you're not a member of the relevant section of the scientific community, there's not much reason for you to have heard about it. The mainstream media just doesn't cover science as much as it used to in the 20th century. Not unless it can be easily sensationalized, anyway.

[@hogandromgool2062]

@@delphicdescant I think it takes a rather daft mind to not realize that most scientists aren't sitting there with a microphone blurting out their discoveries and research data. Most of them are instead using that data and we will usually know if something amazing is discovered.

[@roberthesser6402]

@@delphicdescant This does seem like the kind of thing they'd love to sensationalize, however. Watch the one time we actually find aliens be the time that pop-sci outlets didn't flood the internet with clickbait headlines ending in question marks and thumbnails with big red circles and arrows.

[@tigerwarsaw99]

​@@roberthesser6402You make a good point.

[@user-ue8vp6fy8y]

Ive only discoered this channel yesterday and i am binging theough the videos. This is some of the most informative, entertaining channels i have found. I wish I got recommended sooner

[@Zakxifor]

Don’t binge it too quickly, or you’ll be like me, desperately waiting for the next video!

[@Noqtis]

In my country we have to pay basically a tax for a neutral tv that is supposed to do stuff like that but despite them having 50% of what Netflix has all their science stuff is made like they are explaining it to children. It's quite amazing to have this premium education for free on yt. People from all over the world are watching and learning together about the world and we are here all equal in our hunger of knowledge, from the wall street banker to the poor kid in africa watching from his 2010 phone. I wish everyone who reads this a curious life ✌️

[@Ken-fh4jc]

Make sure you watch the time travel one from a few years ago and the recent outlive the universe one.

[@RT-qd8yl]

@@Noqtis It's the same problem in my country, public science and nature is dumbed down to an unreasonable degree and then nowhere near as informative. I'm glad there's places that people like us can look deeper into things. 🙂

[@acmehorse]

​@@Ken-fh4jc Yes... Watching the end of World 🌎.

[@69ing_Chipmunks]

Dr. Kipping, the graphic is wrong at the 11:42 mark. You say 298 Flerovium and the graphic shows 289. Thank you for spreading science with these episodes and your podcasts!

[@CoolWorldsLab]

🤦🏻

[@69ing_Chipmunks]

@@CoolWorldsLab Don't sweat it Dr. Kipping. Just keep the science coming!

[@philbarre]

My favourite science channel. Full stop. Look forward to each post and ponder each one long after. Thank you Dr Kipping and team.

[@alberton.1601]

"Apparently inexplicable phenomena should be examined with much more scrupulous attention since it seems more difficult to admit them", P. S. Laplace. Quoted by Sagan himself as "Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence" (ECREE), is a good and well applicable aphorism despite its detractors

[@zazugee]

so alien life is an extraordinary claim? isn't the claim that life is unique to earth an extraordinary claim according to naturalism?

[@DSlyde]

​@@zazugee the argument is not "no life exists anywhere else in the universe", but "a given astronomical oddity is not caused by aliens". Those are very different arguments with very different requirements for convincing evidence. Proving the first, and *disproving* the second would both be extraordinary claims.

[@zazugee]

@@DSlyde they requires evidence, you must define what is extraordinary first

[@DSlyde]

@@zazugee extraordinary means what it means. Outside the ordinary. If a hypothesis goes against all the previous examples, then you require more evidence than if it aligned with all the other evidence available. Take the examples I gave, and lets oversimplify a bit. Say we've looked at 999 other stars without life and estimate that there's a 1 in 1000 chance for a star to have life around it So the chance of a particular star you pick having alien is 0.1%. But the chance of no other life in just the milky way, with its 100 billion stars, is so close to 0 that I couldn't physically type out the number here. "This star doesn't have life" and "no other star has life" are very very different claims.

[@hedgehog3180]

@@zazugee The claim that life only exists on Earth isn't extraordinary it is the null hypothesis. You are right that this seems unlikely to be the case given what we know but the null hypothesis can't be disproven simply by seeming unlikely, it has to actually be disproven experimentally. We don't know if maybe the conditions required for life are just so specific that it has only happened once in our galaxy or if we are just really early on the cosmic stage.

[@thomascoolidge2161]

One other possibility that you didnt mention... a recent neutron star merger in a trinary system or some other weird interaction between a neutron star and a weird A type star. Maybe two fast moving neutron stars had a glancing collision and one of them got swallowed up in an A type star and is slowly breaking apart releasing large clumps of neutrons which are decaying into the elements we see.

[@christopherleubner6633]

Yup that's what it appears to be. The strong magnetic field would eject the rare earth metals to the surface while holding iron close to it. A fresh merger would also make it burn much hotter.

[@jhtrq1465]

TZO object but with a main sequence star? It would be very nice to find out!

[@Logarithm906]

But... Neutron stars are neutron stars before the gravity is so high it breaks the electron degeneracy. If you add mass to it, you're only adding more gravity, which means the chances of clumps of neutrons breaking out decreases (and that's already pretty slim to begin with).

[@goose300183]

Interesting! Your comment made me imagine tennis ball sized lumps of neutronium which then split down creating all possible daughter nuclides.

[@jhtrq1465]

@@goose300183 When you think about it, it's very unlikely for the neutron star to decompose inside the star. The density of the NS is far greater than the inside of a main sequence star. What may happen is highly energetic reaction happening at the interface between the 2 objects.

[@braggarmybrat]

I loved the way you talked about spectrography and the elements. You made almost poetry with your words, I took many years of chemistry and found it more beautiful and curious than most other things!

[@steve-3p-oh280]

Professor Kippling: Your story telling is inspiring 💡🤩 and the highlight of my day is when a new video of yours drops. Kudos to you, to the @CoolWorldsLab, and to the research you do!

[@liftpenguin]

Professor Kipping. Respectfully, you’re jacked my guy. Also, absolutely amazing video.

[@CoolWorldsLab]

Haha thanks

[@jimjimmy3131]

Νους υγιής έν σώματι υγιεί. Is what the ancient Greeks would say. A strong mind SHOULD/MUST go with a strong brain. After all, the body is just another extension of your thoughts , why should it be weak ?

[@MrCmon113]

@@jimjimmy3131 You're naturally as strong as you need to be. Getting jacked is awesome, but it's awesome precisely, because it's totally unnecessary. Especially if you're an academic and not a professional athlete.

[@johnnyringo35]

Unnecessary? If the world keeps going to shite ....you'll wish you were more prepared.... physically, mentally, provisions, armament....etc..... nothing is unnecessary.....just not always needed until it is .... For a channel that is supposed to bring great minds together to debate..... Some are seemingly lacking.....

[@MuantanamoMobile]

@@MrCmon113 I guess that also means, that You are naturally as intelligent, educated and informed as you need to be, no need for education, learning or even being further informed.

[@DarkGodSeti]

Once again you deepen my curiosity. Every time I think I have some sort of understanding, just blown away. Thanks again!

[@nallemanstankarochfunderin5962]

I just can't express how much I love your videos. Your way to make almost anything sound plausible, and your way to find all these amazing subjects to make your videos about. I'm feeling lucky every time I see your face somewhere, because it feels like it's storytime and my best friend is about to tell me one amazing new story.

[@stuartarnold64]

Loved this!! Probably my favourite video of yours to date!!

[@marcocameriere1728]

Really enjoy your videos! They always make me think a lot, and encourage me to go more into detail about the topics, which is the most important thing for a channel such as this

[@dmeemd7787]

We need to get this video up in the millions of views! You absolutely gotta talk about this on different platforms and get some awareness going!! I’ve been sharing this with everyone and I really hope the research is treated properly…. Especially with how the news is right now. Absolutely incredible video ..

[@carterpochynok4874]

My favorite space channel covering my favorite star. Can't possibly complain!

[@jameswalker7899]

An intriguing, thought-provoking episode. Warmest compliments. Thank you, sir. :)

[@Satoruu23]

this is better than all science documentaries together! thanks for these vids Professor David Kipping!

[@amorphose8532]

You have to be one of the best astronomy channels out there! Such interesting topics always ✨️

[@colbynotes2741]

0:49 - Przybylski 1:29 - Przybylski 2:30 - Przybylski 2:45 - Przybylski 3:56 - Przybylski 4:02 - Przybylski 4:31 - Przybylski 4:57 - Przybylski 5:28 - Przybylski 7:14 - Przybylski 9:29 - Przybylski 12:22 - Vladimir Zuber 12:43 - Przybylski 13:20 - Przybylski 13:59 - Przybylski 14:25 - Iosif Shklovsky 14:38 - Przybylski 15:40 - Boyajian 16:31 - Alex Nimmerjahn

[@SharTheo]

Woy, you can say that again.

[@colbynotes2741]

@@SharTheo that again. You are correct, sir.

[@CoolWorldsLab]

Why can’t people just have easy names…

[@stickynorth]

This is one of those mind-blowing concepts that no matter what the outcome will continue to fascinate us until we know for sure...

[@mountpennart]

Love the explanation of this mystery Dr. Kipping! This was fascinating! Loved the exercise montage too 😉!!!

[@colettefackrell7349]

Not gonna lie, the exercise montage was my favorite part! 🤣

[@Particleman50]

Very Interesting, Professor. I'll have to look more into this Przybylski’s Star you speak of.

[@Beya045]

This was brilliant, easy to digest, and simply beautiful.

[@HaHa-gy5vg]

Perhaps Przewalski's horses prefer Przybylski's starlight?

[@gretchenmyers1279]

neigh

[@paulrockatansky77]

It behooves us to find out.

[@gretchenmyers1279]

@@paulrockatansky77 lmao, hay, good one!

[@RibusPQR]

Now that's a horse of a different color.

[@gretchenmyers1279]

@@RibusPQR would that make it a Paint horse?

[@laz001]

Professor Kipping got guns lol! An amazing video. Whats the plan for this star in the scientific community? Is JWT or another observatory scheduled to get some extra information about it?

[@PandoricaLost]

loved the video and this new format!

[@laxxboy20]

13:23 Ahh this clip. This piece of footage is one of the single most intriguing things I've ever witnessed.

[@jeffb813]

Love this video, David. Your expression when bringing for the alien hypothesis was hilarious. Kudos to you. :)

[@caifan461]

Fascinating stuff! This is one of the most interesting channels in KZbin.

[@_Corsa]

I had commented with the proposal found @ ads, but see you have linked it in the pin. The link isn't working but readers now have the address for those interested. Thanks for the video.

[@AceSpadeThePikachu]

Some exoplanets inexplicably have measured densities greater than that of Osmium, implying that if their density was measure correctly, they MUST have island-of-stability elements in them. If this is the case, than if one such planet got too close to its host star and was swallowed by it, that could explain both the detection of these elements and the star's relatively slow spin, especially if the planet in question was exceptionally massive and thus able to significantly affect the stars angular momentum.

[@fandomguy8025]

No the slow spin is explained by the magnetic field which, again, flings out material & puts the breaks on the star. Newton.

[@joshuagharis9017]

Professor and team, thanks again for the fabulous videos and great work. Your sharing makes one feelas though we're apart of your team. Keep up the phenomenal work! 😊

[@cezaryawny3297]

The pronunciation of Przybylski is quite good sir. 😁

[@michal_wojtowicz_]

Yes, indeed :)

[@mayoite160]

NGL that periodic table singing cracked me up far more than it should have. Monty Python would approve of your comedic timing

[@whiterosesalchemist]

That song is by Tom Lehrer.

[@jakepockets4977]

I'm sure you get this a lot, but any chance you've considered doing ASMR? You've got quite a soothing and relaxing voice, sorry if that's weird. Very rarely do you find people who are both scientists and who can communicate that science effectively to a large audience of laypeople. With a super relaxing voice, fun animations. And a workout video to boot! Man, almost got me sweating with that. A✅+ with extra credit Not that you need my validation Thanks for the excellent content. This is fascinating and I went and rambled to a few friends about it and sent it to a couple of folks. Very grateful to have subscribed, I've enjoyed everything I've seen so far.

[@LuciFur-wz8rc]

Nice channel, I just discovered it. Thanks for doing the hard work and giving curious people good quality information. In all modesty, I feel that is sometimes missing on youtube astronomy channels, but yours is wonderful.

[@greedowins2917]

357 light years? That is relatively close!

[@LuciFur-wz8rc]

It really is in our backyard. Makes me wonder how many stars are in that radius. I ended up with a guesstimate of 100k, based on 1 reddit post and 1 napkin.

[@martinoconnor4314]

lol...relatively close, always makes me chuckle does that one! here's how close it is. The Parker Solar probe is the fastest thing ever made by humans, its top speed is approx 395,000 mph or if you prefer 635,000 kph. Travelling at that speed without slowing down to visit would take approximately 675,000 years to reach Przybylski’s Star. Its a good job that it is relatively close and in "our backyard" or we'd never ever get there.

[@sophiejones3554]

@@martinoconnor4314putting the cart before the horse here friend. In the more immediate future, 357 light years is close enough to attempt contact. We have the capability already to put all the important data about our system, planet and species into an electromagnetic broadcast which could reach this system without loss of important data. It would also be realistic to imagine an organization dedicated to waiting for, and deciphering any return message 700 years from now. By that point, it's conceivable we'd have faster travel options than we do currently. Additionally, we should really look through our old data and see if we received a communication from this system already: but perhaps our analytic technology or understanding at that time was too limited to recognize it for what it was. The truth is, if we had received a linguistic communication from an alien civilization in the 50s or something, we would not have recognized it as a communication: our scientific understanding of what constituted a language was much too narrow-minded. Someone needs to let a linguist go through the old data from radio telescopes and stuff to see if there is anything that looks like linguistic communication, especially in data coming from this system. Because if this star is really being salted, the aliens doing it ought to have been noisy af for quite a while and their telecommunications should have reached us relatively intact.

[@jasonbergman5781]

@@martinoconnor4314it depends on what frame of reference your at. If we are from a perspective of current humanity, yea it’s pretty much an impossibility large distance. But on a galactic scale it’s so damn close. I always chuckle as well cause I have a background in engineering. But I love thinking about what could be.

[@martinoconnor4314]

@@jasonbergman5781 I'm using the only frame of reference that I have now, the one that I know exists without any suppositions. We can all read Sci-fi books and dream of FTL ships (I know I do!) but that won't solve the problem of astronomical distances. Lets continue this conversation when the first Human made object has covered its first light years distance from Earth.

[@leekelly856]

That spectroscopy animation of the starlight emission was pretty sweet!

[@attilahorvath8152]

IMHO - a very thoughtful & informative presentation

[@huski1]

An extraterrestrial civilization salting their home star as way of sending a signal to let any other civilizations looking for anomalies would make a lot of sense I think, because this way the signal can cover a lot more of the universe as the material would be detectable form all the directions (assuming they are capable of dispersing enough heavy elements covering all over or most of the star's surface). So other observers would be able to detect the anomaly irrespective of how they are oriented to their home system.

[@pencilpauli9442]

Sounds like an expensive act of desperation more than a means of communication.

[@joshf9074]

@@pencilpauli9442dying breath of a civilization. “We were here”

[@HaukeLaging]

@@joshf9074 That does not make sense with this half-life. A renewal process would have to have survived the civilization.

[@inthefade]

You'd have to have some balls of steel to want to invite all your galactic neighbors over for tea without having met them yet. I highly doubt anyone would deliberately do this to their own home star, but who knows.

[@HaukeLaging]

@@pencilpauli9442 That would seem like a reasonable assessment only if you could point out a superior way of "broadcasting". On the other hand: Someone so close in our galactic neighbourhood with that level of technology should be aware of life on Earth. So if they want to attract attention then it would make some sense to expect a less ambigeous form of communication / beacon directed at us. Of course that is now a lot of assuming about the detailed intentions of aliens... so really not a strong argument, just belief.

[@uktenatsila9168]

Exciting! Thank you for teaching us.

[@gronki1]

Your pronunciation of Przybylski is very good 🙂 cheers from Poland and subscribed!

[@RemovedBrain]

"And for homework, each of you will create your own star. The more interesting you make it, the better score you will get. Then we will stabilize the best star and take it somewhere where others can admire it. That's all for today, kids". :)

[@Rev_Oir]

I love this. You just made me crack up more than any science video I've ever seen. Thanks! p.s. I love Tom Lehrer, and how you used his "Elements Song" to call out the weirdness of this star. It almost deserves a telescope of its own...

[@georgespalding7640]

It's so cool to see an outstanding member of Academia taking the time to focus on his physical health. A healthy body leads to a healthy mind and I believe Fitness can make the mind even sharper then it would normally be. Looking good Dr. Kipping.

[@nuclearmantis666]

6:36 yooooo! Bro is ripped. Excellent shape my friend 💪

[@daMillenialTrucker]

If your a scientist and don't lift, do you even science bro?

[@thelukesternater]

Bro got me to do my physical therapy today… we all gonna make it brahz

[@TCBYEAHCUZ]

"No man has the right to be an amateur in the matter of physical training, It is a shame for a man to grow old without seeing the beauty and strength of which his body is capable of - Socrates 469 - 399 BC"

[@unflexian]

creep

[@sqnkk]

I've had a laymen's interest in this star ever since hearing about it on John Michael Godier's channel. When I saw the thumbnail for this video, I knew immediately what it would be about and had to watch it. It did not disappoint.

[@qwertasd7]

If it has truly strong magnetic fields, it's possible the reactions don't happen at the core of those starts, but at the magnetic vortexes, so we see them outside the star which might have been a metal rich area.

[@Cyan37]

Earned my sub, very good content!

[@fromfuturespast]

subscribed I love your voice and your delivery 10/10

[@kirandeepchakraborty7921]

Can't tell you how much we love your videos and wait for them.⭐⭐⭐⭐

[@abstractedaway]

7:24 Ukraine mentioned in a non-war context! ✨🎉

[@AdrianBoyko]

Слава Україні! 🇺🇦

[@echoplots8058]

Because 2008 was before the war

[@abstractedaway]

@@echoplots8058 Of course. Mentioned because Ukrainians mention feeling comforted by visible as humans.

[@joz6683]

It's never aliens 👽 until it aliens 👽

[@dewetolivier2362]

Everybody's Gangsta , until it's ALIENS!👽

[@sergiob8501]

maybe it is a dark forest..

[@chriskelso723]

Maybe that's God's man cave. 😂

[@JetJockey87]

It's not a bad way to try and communicate with other civilisations. They figure that other civilisations will eventually image their star, so they change it to be impossible by nature and therefore must be constructed by alien life. They go to investigate and what happens when they arrive? Hi.... We've been trying to reach you about your planet's extended warranty...

[@ImBarryScottCSS]

​@@sergiob8501It's looking real dark right now, but we haven't invented very good torches yet so let's wait and see.

[@robertwatts4288]

Great video, just one small technical error in your use of stock footage, @4:19 where you mention the lack of iron in the star, the footage shows a lot of metal bars marked as D16T, which is an Aluminium Grade, not iron

[@Cannabian]

I've been curious about this star for year and wondered if any progress had been made. Good to know it's still strange :)

[@alnewby]

Please Professor Kipping, more workout/gym footage (smile).--Al Newby

[@kevinme6487]

Enjoyed this 😃

[@CoolWorldsLab]

Great! Tried going a bit shorter this time to keep engagement up

[@MrCmon113]

@@CoolWorldsLab That's sad to hear. I enjoy longer videos more, but I have to admit that I sometimes watch them in two sessions, which is probably bad for the algorithm.

[@_WowSignal_]

Fascinating. I'm surprised this hasn't had more attention

[@Gilotopia]

Is there a list or catalog of these mysterious stars?

[@elijahlunt276]

I'd be interested to check its neighboring stars for anomalies.

[@CoolWorldsLab]

Good idea

[@dannybrown5744]

​@@CoolWorldsLab I would think they started a process and would stop by and harvest from a sun that is not their own star

[@brandonb5075]

Is it possible that Stars are “trading” Elements through a type of entanglement, like trees trade minerals and sugars? (ie. a more modern “alchemical transmutation”) Great video!✌🏼😊

[@SuperPhunThyme9]

That's a really cool thought. I consider myself a very creative person, and I doubt I'd ever imagine such a unique idea. If you haven't studied formally in this field, please consider it. You'd be a great theoretical scientist of any sort, imo.

[@brandonb5075]

@@SuperPhunThyme9 Ideas are meant to be shared, use it! Thank you very much for the compliment, but I’m already an Industrial Designer (link between ideas and engineering) with a terminal Masters Degree…I forced myself to do that so I could teach one day. I’m still learning though. It is not me…I’m a visual learner and I came across this thing called a Thunderstorm Generator a few months ago. It showed this “fractal toroidal geometry” that is doing weird things to C atoms. Most academics think it’s fake, but it’s not! It’s a new/old tech based of geometry. It reminded me of “cavitation”…it’s a lot but very interesting! Also he has a spiral periodic table that is matched to harmonic frequencies. Which is interesting because it could be a way to use light/frequency to layer Elements at atomic levels in a kind of “meta material” 3d printer. Have a great day!

[@georgemyoung1467]

What mic are you using....sounds great! Great video !

[@CoolWorldsLab]

Rode Procaster

[@charlesjmouse]

Very interesting, thank you. Some observations, and a most unsatisfactory suggestion: It's hard to imagine complex life arising in such a short-lived star system, so what would induce anyone to 'visit' from one assumes somewhere far more 'clement' with other options? There would have to be a darn-good reason without the convenience of FTL - surely we would know if anyone had such technology, having met them? Maybe this Type A star is 'normal' but for it's slow rotation allowing observation - we simply understand such stars far less well than we thought!

[@HappyBeezerStudios]

The shown paper at 13:52 mentions that. "In addition to this limit, spectral types earlier than A5 have lifetimes on the main sequence less than about 2 x 10^9 years and are therefore unlikely to have had time to evolve a technical civilization." Which could explain deliberate "salting", they just go to a different star system where no complex life will develop. If that is deliberate by an alien civilisation, it might just be their version of NIMBY. Because if you get rid of your super ultra heavy elements, you don't dig a hole in your garden, you put it as far away as possible.

[@ezpzlemonsqz]

Could the explanation be generation instead of disposal? A civilization that's figured out how to trigger nuclear reactions in their star that cause it to synthesize and eject large volumes of rare heavy elements

[@goiterlanternbase]

So the star has recently swallowed a planetesimal and is now chewing it up🤗

[@LordCommissarLex]

listening to him talk about this and how passionate he is made me feel like I was listening to a storyteller.

[@carlossaraiva8213]

One of the best science comunicators since Carl Sagan.

[@CoolWorldsLab]

That’s high praise!

[@marrrtin]

So nice to see a deep dive into one of my favourite stars, by one of my fave physics KZbinrs. It is "peculiar" to me, that although we have discovered something that looks exactly like Carl Sagan's hypothesized techno-signature, it is casually dismissed as most likely natural. FWIW, I have a few thoughts. The most salient is that the relative abundance of the lanthanides to each other reflects their natural distribution, notwithstanding all of them being heightened relative to iron in this star. This in turn I presume to be a result of relative stabilities of nuclide configurations in the nucleus, somewhat analogous to electron shells. Even Z is stabler than odd Z, for instance. Secondly, the most salient factor for the stability of actinides is neutron numbers. Our lab-made elements are made by firing in neutrons to hope that they stick. Perhaps this method cannot make the large number of neutrons we need for this star to work. As you point out, the whole island of stability hypothesis is in itself mind blowing. It implies basically that we've still got another entire row of the periodic table still unknown to us, and I really liked this video for mentioning it. I would certainly support any large-scale study to really get to the bottom of what's going on here, because it is weird even if it is natural. My expectation is some source of neutrons to make those elements which is more efficient than our current spitball technique.

[@Alexander-ri1bp]

Maybe the elements are indeed there, but they are formed under special circumstances. The star acts as a particle accelerator and 'creates' the rare elements through the bombardment of subparticles.

[@bigmacchicken9682]

Always a joy whenever cool wolrds releases a new video

[@Sylvester4571]

I bet there are crazy elements out there with properties that we couldn't even imagine. Another great video again professor

[@craigbleakley7541]

Awesome and interesting presentation Dr. Without reading all the referenced papers. I would like to forward that an undetected neutron star would likely strip the star clean if near by not feed it. I would argue that the heavy neutron environment may be replenishing neutrons to build and destroy these elements in an ongoing manner out of our understanding. Also, if you would like funding please show us your students works on a cast some time. 😊

[@sinebar]

If they're advanced enough to "salt" a star they probably already know we're here.

[@lucasgibbs4879]

I hope we're salty enough

[@HaukeLaging]

That was one of my first thoughts, too. But salting a star would not be mainly about learning about others but about telling others about you. So no contradiction here (maybe you didn't mean it as such). But: Without coming here (which would take them some 10,000 years) They would learn about us (as a technological civilization) in 250+ years when our first strong em signals arrive there. What do you think where mankind will be technologically in 350 years? Of course, not just having them as close but in addition on a so similar level would be an insane coincidence. Or it is not their home star but they have sent "drones" to the rare stars which are suitable for this in order to broadcast "you are not alone". OK, if it is drones then by now we may be alone "again"... 😄

[@ayesaac]

I'm not sure about that. We're 350 lightyears away; our technosignatures won't be visible to them for another couple centuries. Biosignatures could be an option, but we have no idea how common atmospheric conditions like ours are in the universe; we can't even observe our nearest interstellar neighbours in any significant detail, and we're still detecting such things for the first time in our own solar system.

[@astyanax905]

If we are unique enough for them to care, yeah. 350 light-years is obviously not next door, but incredibly close cosmically speaking, and if someone is salting that star life is certainly common

[@Rivenburg-xd5yf]

In 300 years they'll be watching Giligans island...

[@patrickdaly1088]

When you said no iron, but there were heavier elements, my first thought was Salted stars. I thought stellar actinides were one of the most sure technosignatures?

[@danm3570]

This is great you made an in depth video about this, remember hearing about it on event horizon 👍

[@tradtke101]

The smoother and more clever the transitions into adverts, the more jarring and unwelcome I find it.

[@rezadaneshi]

We're considering using nuclear waste to power starships. So what is the byproduct of nuclear waste falling into the sun do to our star?

[@danxdanx8877]

Lol, Nothing, the sun is too big to even notice the waste.

[@rezadaneshi]

@@danxdanx8877 What we read in the spectrum of a star is the point

[@erixperience4050]

You could dump the entire non-stellar part of the solar system in and it still would barely be measurable

[@CoolWorldsLab]

The Sun's envelope is convective, so it would quickly pull down anything we dump into it. It's the radiative envelope of Ap stars that allows this stuff to be detectable in smaller quantities than would be needed here.

[@araptuga]

If this was indeed some sort of technosignature, I would guess the aliens would be from a different star system, who have traveled there and set up shop. I figured if this was some sort of A star, it's Main Sequence lifespan would be short (on the order of a few hundred million years), allowing little time for life to evolve to point of having a technological species. I looked into this a bit, and found that it's actually thought to be at most a small A star, or more likely an F star, and thus has a somewhat longer lifespan (estimated to be ~ 1.5 billion years old now, and near end of Main Sequence period). In any case, IF it were aliens, AND they were from elsewhere, perhaps they are there to do "star-lifting", harvesting elements from within the star for, say, building a Dyson swarm around it. Could that perhaps allow for dredging up peculiar elements from the core, that would otherwise never make it to the surface? I still don't see how such heavy and short-lived elements could be produced even in the core. But hey, once you open the can of worms labeled "Aliens", all kinds of weird stuff can be considered. Personally, the mundane reason (we got the spectal lines wrong and these elements are not even present) seems the most likely. But if it DID turn out to somehow result from decay of elements from the Island of Stability, that would be very exciting. Maybe not megastructure-building-aliens-only-350 ly-away exciting, but still a major advance in science.

[@ShibiChan]

The world doesn't deserve your channel. We are truly blessed by the Przybylski’s Star aliens!

[@Mercurio-Morat-Goes-Bughunting]

00:06 that can also be caused by a brief but total eclipse due to a traversing rogue planet, asteroid, meteor or comet followed by debris. It may well be lottery odds but, just like playing enough numbers will improve your odds of a prize, watching enough stars will greatly improve your odds of seeing some of the less common phenomena predicted the model of space which includes non-luminous matter as debris - some of which hasn't yet fallen into a stable orbit and provides the basis for the Raleigh Effect to operate in space. Lot's of implications and questions right there. The problem with spectroscopy is that it is strictly superficial and is incapable of addressing more than surface chemistry - as any geologist familiar with remote sensing techniques can tell you. So while there's a lot we can say about stellar surface chemistry, any knowledge of stellar chemistry with reproducible confirmation stops at the extinction depth. 3:38 remember the explanation for the graph at 00:06? Taken across interstellar distances, that explanation predicts sufficient dust and small debris to impose a Raleigh Effect on light coming from stars which, likewise, causes spectral redshift, loss of resolution and provides the simplest explanation for changes in the amount of spectral redshift over time, not to mention background radiation. Probably the best confirmation of the Raleigh Effect, is a sunset or sunrise; bearing in mind that this is not something which is magically limited to an atmosphere but can be reproduced anywhere there is a sufficient amount of disseminated particulate matter. 07:15 Also, if you want to find extraterrestrial life, Przybylski's star is the kind of system you want to look more closely at due to the elemental diversity. Just bear in mind that life need not be carbon-based or even solid. All that is required for life is sufficient elemental diversity to allow the existence of stable chemical systems - and, yes, from the point of view of chemistry, life is defined by the stability of a system driven by chemical reactions which feedback on one-another to perpetuate the system (with or without recognisable structure). If all those elements are present in the stellar corona, then it's likely that the chemistry of the environment has evolved into living, reproducing, localised systems of chemistry as well as clearly defined ecological systems which support a naturally selected interaction of living systems with one another. 09:40 Sometimes we don't explain. Sometimes we wait patiently for more information. Sure, it might be a stellar example of terraforming. There might also be stellar mechanisms which don't know about. In fact, I'd bet the bank on it given that we can only scratch the surface and theorise about what is happening below extinction depth. There could be the stellar core equivalent of vulcanism with plumes that shoot up into the corona; carrying with them an interesting variety of elements or it could be as drab and boring as pollution from an industrialised species that lives in a coronal ecosystem (remember the elemental diversity will drive the evolution of life provided overall entropy starts low enough). And it could well be a species salting a star. It could also be light pollution from large scale space warfare in the vicinity of the star. There are so many plausible explanations, it isn't really sensible to settle on any one of them. Rather, what would be interesting would be to devise some questions about how each scenario would differ from the others in what we are capable of observing - and then see if our observations can narrow things down. Yes, misinterpretation is the most likely given the number of definitive, repeatable observations which can't be made - and Immanuel Kant had a LOT to say about this problem with human thought.

[@capefear56]

Loved the Tom Lehrer reference

[@richarde8806]

I love this channel, so informative.

[@CoolWorldsLab]

I appreciate that!

[@dannybrown5744]

Oops retired electronics electrician working as produce clerk grocery. I love your work. Have my shower curtain PTE to follow with. Been following you for couple years now. You make it easy. I believe I can actually follow and comprehend. I do try to follow up on papers some. Keep me challenged . THANK YOU.

[@brotherchris13]

When you first started listing the elements in the star, I first thought of Superman. Then you said fission, I'm on the edge of my seat waiting for you to say it. You did not disappoint me. One thing you forgot to mention, a Stargate wormhole might of picked up heavier elements in a nebula, passed through the star, and deposited the elements as it passed through. I watch too much sci-fi 😂🤣 Stargate SG1, season 5, Red Sky for reference

[@DBear789]

You are such a good narrator and story teller

[@johnnymo4000]

Crazy we can't accept that the universe doesn't follow our relative laws of science, but we will jump to believing "aliens".

[@ZedNinetySix_]

Absolutely!

[@Nomnom4kirby]

Aliens honestly make sense. The universe is too big, incomprehensiblely big. It doesn't make any sense, given the factors, that we are the only "intelligent" beings out there

[@jackelewish1568]

As he states in the video it's a "God of the gaps" mentality that humans tend to naturally lean towards.

[@krakios3950]

I mean, I don't think it's that weird. Is it that odd for people to believe in something that's possible rather than to immediately assume we've been wrong? Which isn't to say we should always assume we're right, but I don't think it's crazy for people to believe the thing that's consistent with what we know rather than something we don't understand yet.

[@wilbur8D]

I like the lengths scientists will go to not wrongly call it strange.

[@emzywillrich7243]

Great discussion, Dr. Kipping!

[@hrishikeshaggrawal]

There is an upper limit to the mass of a neutron star that prevents them from growing to a larger size since they collapse into a singularity from the strong gravity otherwise and there is also a lower limit to their mass as well because there is a minimum amount of overhead plasma of stellar gas that is required to pressure the inner iron core into condensing into the denser neutron star structure. But what if we were wrong about the lower limit? If a neutron star of average size forms normally, then in the event of a collision with another neutron star, instead of breaking down into far smaller chunks, if such an event had somehow retained a resultant chunk that was large enough in size to have a gravity that fights the electromagnetic force's repulsion of matter, but was much smaller than the predicted lower limit of a neutron star, then if this resultant body acquired an atmosphere of helium and hydrogen that was provided the right conditions for fusion thanks to the extra dense core, would that explain what this star is? Since there's heavier elements present in the star, then it would make sense for the star to have some history with a neutron star collision event/kilonova. Or what if after the collision, the smaller chunks started to fall back to the larger chunk, but couldn't merge completely, making it so the smaller chunks sitting on the big one are left with no choice but to slowly disintegrate as they are unable to compress themselves due to insufficient gravity, generating a source for fissile material, a star powered by fission.