Stellar Metamorphosis is a model of planet formation in which stars develop over time to become planets. The basic concept was independently suggested and developed by Jeffrey Wolynski, Anthony Abruzzo, and Alexander Oparin, and can also be traced back to Rene Descartes and his vortex cosmology.
(A related but somewhat different proposition was made by Nicholas De Cusa, but in his model a star does not develop to become a planet, but instead both the Earth and The Sun have Earthlike and Sunlike features, suggesting that within the fiery atmosphere of the Sun there is land and bodies of water, and that if we were farther away from the surface of the Earth, it could be seen that our planet also has a fiery atmosphere.)
There seems to have been a lack of exact quotations available online from any works by Rene Descartes discussing his early version of Stellar Metamorphosis. As it turns out, almost all English translations of the 1644 book 'Principles of Philosophy' are just heavily edited selections from the book, and do not contain information about the Earth being a former star like The Sun.
As cited in Abruzzo's paper 'Are Planets the End Products Rather than the By-Products of Stellar Evolution?' one proper full translation of the book is by "Valentine Rodger Miller and Reese P.
Miller, Dordrecht, Synthese Historical Library, 24, 1991".
In Part III, Descartes writes:
"It can also happen that an entire vortex that contains some such star is absorbed by the other surrounding vortices and that its star, snatched into one of these vortices, becomes a Planet or a Comet. "
"How a fixed Star is transformed into a Planet or a Comet.
... if this globe is so solid that, before descending to the point at which the parts of the vortex move the most slowly, it acquires a degree of agitation equal to that of those parts among which it is located; it descends no further, and will process into other vortices and become a Comet.
On the other hand, if it is not sufficiently solid to acquire so much agitation, and therefore descends below that point {at which the parts of the vortex move the most slowly}, it will remain a certain distance from the star which occupies the center of this vortex, and will become a Planet revolving around it.
In Part IV, Descartes writes:
"And so let us imagine that this Earth which we inhabit was formerly {a star} like the Sun, composed solely of the matter of the first element, although it was much smaller than the Sun; and it was situated in a vast vortex."
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