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- Researchers have seen a planet orbiting a white dwarf star just 80 light-years from Earth.
- White dwarf stars do not usually have planets orbiting due to the nature of how stars live and die.
- In this case, the planet is many times the size of the star itself, which makes the pair even weirder.
There are many different types of stars in the cosmos. Some are much larger than others and some burn brighter and hotter than their peers. Over time, stars enter different stages of their own life cycles, and for many stars, becoming a white dwarf is the end of the line. At this point in a star’s life, it has normally destroyed almost everything around it, but researchers have just made a discovery that contradicts all of that.
A white dwarf named WD 1856 is approximately 80 light years from Earth. That’s just a stone’s throw in cosmic terms, and when the researchers looked at it, they saw something they weren’t expecting. It appears that WD 1856 is being orbited by a massive planet that just shouldn’t be there. A study on the subject was published in the journal Nature.
As far as astronomers know, white dwarfs begin life as much larger stars. As they burn off all their fuel, they increase in size and become what scientists call a red giant star. At this stage, it engulfs anything in its immediate vicinity, including planets, moons, and asteroids. Eventually the red giant burns its fuel and collapses. The result is a bright shell of a star known as a white dwarf.
Now if this is what happened to WD 1856, then there really shouldn’t be anything orbiting closely, much less a mega-huge planet that is actually larger than the star itself by a huge margin. The planet is roughly the size of Jupiter, according to NASA, and it orbits its tiny host star once every 34 hours, which is incredibly fast.
“WD 1856 b somehow got very close to its white dwarf and managed to stay in one piece,” said Andrew Vanderburg, lead author of the study, in a statement. “The process of creating the white dwarf destroys nearby planets, and anything that gets too close then is usually ripped apart by the star’s immense gravity. We still have many questions about how WD 1856 b got to its current location without encountering one of those destinations. “
It’s an incredible discovery, and while the planet, in this case, may not be ideal when it comes to searching for life, other planets that orbit the white dwarfs may have the right conditions for life to take root and even thrive. . Once ruled out by astronomers looking for life in space, white dwarfs are now considered a viable candidate for hosting planets capable of harboring living organisms.
Mike Wehner has reported on technology and video games for the past decade, covering the latest news and trends in virtual reality, wearable devices, smartphones, and future technology. Most recently, Mike served as the technology editor at The Daily Dot, and has been featured in USA Today, Time.com, and in many other print and web media. His love of reporting is second only to his addiction to games.
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