All These Worlds (Bobiverse, #3)

by Dennis E. Taylor

Slightly behind me, the planet formerly known as Epsilon Eridani 1, a planet the size of Mars, struck the star at the north pole with a relativistic force equivalent to half the mass of Jupiter. At the same moment, the former largest moon of Epsilon Eridani 3 struck on the opposite pole. Stars are hot, but not really dense. The two planets penetrated to a significant depth before they ceased to exist. The impacts created twin shock waves that raced through the star toward the core. As the disturbances penetrated deeper and compressed the stellar medium, regions that weren’t quite able to sustain hydrogen fusion suddenly found the ability. Regions that were already sustaining fusion found their ability greatly increased. Elements that were nowhere near being able to fuse in the current environment suddenly found themselves with the energy available. Helium fused to carbon and oxygen, and fusion cascaded all the way to iron. In a matter of minutes, the total energy output of the star jumped by a factor of several hundred. The delicate balance of outward energy pressure and inward gravitational pressure was obliterated, and GL 877 exploded outward at half the speed of light. It would take three hours for the star to swallow the entire system; however, it took half that for the blast of radiation to sterilize everything.