A research paper published a couple of years ago featured an ominous title: “The Death of Vulcan.” A team of astronomers killed off a possible planet around the star 40 Eridani. In the lore of Star Trek, the star is the home of the planet Vulcan.

40 Eridani is actually a triple star. The main star is the one that’s supposed to host Vulcan. It’s a little smaller and lighter than the Sun, and only about 40 percent as bright. It’s probably older than the Sun, so there’s been plenty of time for life to develop on any planets that orbit the star.

And in 2018, astronomers reported the possible discovery of one. The planet would have been a “super-Earth” – about eight times Earth’s mass. But the discovery was tentative. And several follow-ups found little evidence to support it.

One concern was that the planet appeared to orbit the star once every 42 days. But that’s about the same period as the star’s rotation. And according to the 2024 study, that’s no coincidence. The earlier study had actually detected activity on the surface of the star. That activity looked like the signal of an orbiting planet. So a possible planet Vulcan vanished in the starlight.

40 Eridani is in the constellation Eridanus, the river. The star is in the southeast at nightfall, well to the upper right of Orion’s Belt. Under dark skies, the star is visible to the eye alone.

Script by Damond Benningfield