A small white dwarf, WD 1856, orbits closely through a giant planet.
NASA Goddard
About 80 light-years from Earth lies the white dwarf WD 1856, a dead star that entered the final stages of its life about 6 billion years ago. These slow deaths are usually quite alone. In the process of dying, some of the stars will expand enormously, becoming a giant “red giant.” Like arecanuts, And encircle any nearby orbiting planets. Eventually, they use up all their fuel and fall back into the white dwarf, destroying everything in their footsteps.
Not so much for WD 1856. For the first time, astronomers discovered a giant planet about the size of Jupiter, orbiting a dead star. They have dubbed it as WD 1856B and it is an amazing discovery – it averted destruction and showed that dead stars can plan planets with the right conditions of life.
The study, published in the journal Nature on Wednesday, used data from a suite of NASA planet-hunting TSS satellites and ground-based telescopes to investigate WD1856 for possible exoplanets. TSS, which examines stars for small dips in brightness representing potential planets, first looked at the stars during July and August August 2019. When the team looked at WD 1856 there was a big drop in brightness.
Astronomers have recently begun to speculate that these dead stars could still plan many planets. In December, researchers discovered A white planet that was slowly being eaten by a white dwarf About 1,500 light-years away. However, it was based on light emitted by debris and gas disks around the star, which researchers suggest should be stripped from a planet like Neptune.
The discovery published today in nature is different because it records a direct discovery of a planet orbiting its host constellation, which has not previously been achieved for the white dwarf.
Each time a Jupiter-sized planet WD transits in front of 1856, as seen from Earth, the light from the star travels about halfway. The process is incredibly short, however, the planet completes one full orbit every 1.4 days. The white dwarf itself is about 40% larger than Earth. As a result, immersion in brightness lasts only eight minutes and the planet is about 20 times closer than our star.
“This system is very strange,” said Simon Campbell, an astrophysicist at Monash University in Australia. “In this case, the planet is bigger than its host star by a factor of 7!”
Using data collected by ground-based telescopes, the team was also able to get an estimate of how vast the planet is. Infrared data from Dearly departed from the Spitzer Space Telescope Suggests that it is probably 14 times larger than Jupiter.
But if it is very close to its star, how did WD 1856B survive the expansion phase? The team made two possible disclosures.
When its host constellation becomes a red giant, it may disrupt the planets in its system, causing their orbits to be questioned. Due to the awkward cosmic dance it could help the bodies of planets like WD 1856B fly towards the star, from where it has been revolving ever since. Because he is such an aging white dwarf, giving the planets plenty of time to sit close. Presumably, that means there are other planets around the white dwarf.
“While impossible, I don’t think we know how likely this is, because when you disrupt orbit, things get chaotic.” “This is where an observation like this is important.”
Researchers say the idea is that Less will probably strip some of the outer layers of stars and survive during the expansion phase. However, they conclude our current theories on this process probably suggest that it was not formed in such a way.
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The team writes that, from future observations, WD 1856B should be able to confirm whether there really is a planet or if it is a failed star known as a “brown dwarf”. They point out The next, but long-delayed James Webb Telescope And the Gemini Observatory as the key to better understanding WD 1856b. And, of course, if there are planets, they will be able to plan life.
“There are people who are now looking to relocate planets around a white dwarf that are potentially habitable,” Ian Crossfield said in a press release. “It’s going to be a very strange system, and you have to think about how the planets really survived all that time.”
Of course, if we can wait a few billion years, the fate of our own solar system will give us front-row seats to the party next to the white dwarf. When our sun begins to die, it will swell to a size that extends beyond the orbit of Mars. It will be Really Huge. Until all four inner planets in the solar system are ignited in expansion, like WD 1856, it runs on fuel and breaks down into a cold, white dwarf. Will extraterrestrial planets like Jupiter, Saturn and Neptune fly closer to the carnage? I’m sure we won’t be around.
