Discovering Cosmic "Devourers": Yuan-Sen Ting, Pride of Chinese Independent Schools
On March 21st this year, the prestigious scientific journal Nature featured an important research finding on its cover: "At least 1 in 12 stars shows evidence of having swallowed a planet," revealing an astonishing phenomenon in astronomy—our vast universe contains "devourers."
Leading this research team is Malaysian astrophysicist Dr. Yuan-Sen Ting. Their research also revealed evidence of planetary ingestion, making an important contribution to the study of planetary stability.
From Harvard to the Stars
Yuan-Sen Ting, currently Associate Professor in the School of Astronomy and Computer Science at the Australian National University, shared advice for young Malaysians: "Success comes in many forms—don't just fixate on one goal or conventional definitions of success. If you only focus on one target, you'll easily miss other opportunities that might be right beside you."
Yuan-Sen Ting is from Kuala Lumpur. He attended Chong Hwa Independent High School during secondary school, then pursued dual degrees at the National University of Singapore and École Polytechnique in Paris. After completing his bachelor's and master's degrees, he went to Harvard University in the United States to specialize in astrophysics. He received his Ph.D. in 2017 and stayed in the US for postdoctoral research, supported by fellowships from NASA Hubble, the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, Princeton University, and the Carnegie Institution for Science, before joining the Australian National University.
His father works as a project manager in construction, his mother is a homemaker, and his sister, like him, is in research—one studies astronomy, the other immunology.
Astrophysics: A Path with Many Opportunities
He shared that astrophysics is essentially a combination of mathematics, statistics, artificial intelligence, and big data programming. In today's big data era, this combination opens doors to many fields. Many of his classmates and students have gone on to Wall Street (analyzing stocks), Silicon Valley (programming), or founded tech startups—quite different from the stereotype that studying natural sciences is only for becoming a teacher.
"Of course, some who study natural sciences choose to stay in academia like me, becoming researchers or professors. But among those with physics or math Ph.D.s, few stay for academic ideals like I did—there are actually many lucrative paths in this field."
His daily work mainly involves using artificial intelligence to process big data collected from the universe (studying billions of celestial bodies simultaneously). Since astronomical data is now enormous and impossible to process manually one by one, they harness AI to find patterns in how the universe operates and discover observations that might contradict our current physical understanding, thereby advancing human knowledge of the cosmos.
Top Students Don't Have to Study Medicine or Law
Yuan-Sen Ting believes that in Malaysia and nearby regions, many students probably had similar experiences to his—thinking that excellent students should study medicine or law. One's environment certainly influences personal choices significantly. But in most developed countries, top students typically choose natural sciences (including physics) first.
"Perhaps people's blind spot is thinking that studying natural sciences makes it hard to find jobs in Malaysia. While fundamental science research still needs development in Southeast Asia, the hard skills learned in physics and mathematics (statistics, mathematical modeling, AI, etc.) form the foundation for many jobs. In Silicon Valley, for instance, the easiest jobs to find are usually for those who studied math or physics, even if their work doesn't directly involve physics."
No Job Cooler Than Astrophysicist
He said he was actually quite lucky. He was decent at math and physics in high school, then circumstances prevented him from studying medicine. After exploring more, he found not only a strong interest in physics but also that switching careers wouldn't be difficult if needed.
"A colleague once told me that when it comes to jobs, there really isn't anything cooler than being an astrophysicist. Think about it—my work involves two things: teaching students about how the universe operates, and exploring cosmic mysteries yet to be unveiled. Is there any cooler job than this?"
Contributing to Malaysia? "No Government Response"
With such an outstanding academic background, Yuan-Sen Ting is currently single. When asked if he'd consider returning to Malaysia to contribute:
He said he has always considered returning to develop his career at home. Recently, astrophysics in Southeast Asia, led by Thailand, has been developing rapidly. He holds a visiting professor position at University of Malaya, occasionally returning to help guide students, hoping to contribute what he can.
He said that at one point, he also wanted to use his knowledge in big data and AI to help the government with something.
"But I wrote to the Ministry of Transport and the Ministry of Science and Technology, and received no response..."
Grateful for Independent School Education
He humbly said he doesn't think getting into Harvard is anything particularly remarkable. Everyone's circumstances are different, and he's been taking things one step at a time—feeling his way forward as he goes. Rather, he believes success comes in many forms—don't just fixate on one goal (like Harvard) or conventional success.
"If you only focus on one target, you'll easily miss other opportunities that might be right beside you."
As a graduate of a Chinese independent school, he's very grateful for his education there. On one hand, the teacher quality was genuinely good; on the other, he made lifelong friendships that have helped him tremendously, and these friends remain his closest companions to this day.
The Research: Studying Stellar Chemical Composition
Discussing this research achievement, Yuan-Sen Ting said his research team is quite large, but this particular project was a side project he led with a relatively small core team of three people. Their main work was conducting detailed studies of stellar chemical composition to find stars that might have swallowed planets.
"We now know that most stars, like our solar system, have planets similar to Earth and Jupiter. However, we're not entirely sure whether these planets' orbits are stable. Our research shows that many planets randomly deviate from their orbits and 'fall into' their stars."
"For example, Malaysia currently has no earthquakes and is a very livable place. The solar system is similar—its current state is relatively stable. However, we can't be certain about what happened before or what will happen in the distant future. After billions of years of evolution, could the solar system become unstable? It's hard to say, but it's stable in its current state. Our research found that there's a significant probability that planetary systems outside our solar system are unstable—if you search for other alien systems, at least 1 in 12 have been unstable within the past billion years."
Using Twin Stars as an Analogy
On how they made this discovery, Yuan-Sen Ting shared: "We studied pairs of twin stars. Like twin siblings, some stars we know formed simultaneously and should have identical properties. For example, if differences exist between twins, we can determine that one must have undergone some change later (in this case, swallowing their planets), causing subtle differences in their current chemical composition.
"Through detailed study of these twin stars, we found that in every dozen pairs, one pair of these 'twin siblings' wasn't completely identical—and we discovered that one sibling must have been sneaking snacks!"
Understanding How Planetary Systems Form and Evolve
Yuan-Sen Ting shared that an important research direction in astronomy is understanding how planetary systems like our solar system form and evolve. Their findings show that many planetary systems are actually unstable.
"A planetary system (like our solar system with the Sun and eight planets) is at least a 'nine-body problem.' Therefore, before reaching its current relatively stable state, did our solar system ever lose some planets? This is very important for understanding the formation of our solar system and even life itself."
He said their work shows that due to multi-body motion, the stability of many planetary systems outside our solar system is quite fragile. However, it must be clarified that this stability or instability occurs on very long timescales (billions to tens of billions of years), so there's no need to worry about Earth being flung out of its orbit anytime soon.