Dead star seen ripping planet apart.
In approximately 5 billion years, the Sun will deplete its hydrogen fuel and collapse under its own gravity, becoming a white dwarf. Though Earth-sized, this dense remnant will retain much of the Sun’s gravitational influence.
This transformation marks the end of our solar system as we know it. Or does it?
The universe is never idle. Everything is in a perpetual state of fluctuation. Still, it came as a surprise to astronomers to find a 3 billion-year-old white dwarf actively accreting material from its former planetary system – a discovery that challenges assumptions about the late stages of stellar remnant evolution.
The telltale forensic evidence came from observations with the W. M. Keck Observatory on Maunakea in HawaiĘ»i. Spectroscopic analysis of light from the dwarf found 13 chemical elements that must have come from a small rocky body – an asteroid or dwarf planet.
Like an apple falling out of a tree, some unknown gravitational disturbance within the past few million years may have sent this object spiraling inward. It was then torn apart by tidal forces and absorbed into the white dwarf’s surrounding debris disk.
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