The first planet in a white dwarf on which life could exist has been discovered
The planet, 117 light-years from Earth, has stunned astronomers.
Astronomers have found an exoplanet, a planet other than the Sun, orbiting a dying white dwarf star. This exoplanet is a white dwarf 60 times closer to Earth than the Sun and lies in the habitable zone of a stable stellar torsois written in a study published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
White dwarf is a collapsed star of average or below average size. It is not massive enough to achieve thermonuclear fusion conditions in the nucleus. But the nucleus radiates the energy accumulated during the active life of the star and slowly cools down, which can take billions of years.
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“This is the first time anything like this has been observed in the habitable zone of the white dwarf. So there is a possibility of life in the world around it, “he quotes BBC stations Jay Farihi, a professor at the University of London, who led the study.
The habitable zone is considered to be such a distance from the star that it is neither too cold nor too hot, so that water can remain in the liquid state on the local planet.. And this is exactly what astrobiologists consider a necessary condition for the existence of life.
The zone is also called Goldilocks zone according to the fairy-tale character who ate oatmeal “neither hot nor cold.”
Gravity betrayed her
Astronomers have not observed the planet, they have no direct evidence of its existence. However, the movements of 65 Moon-sized objects orbiting in the zone of the white dwarf with the catalog designation WD1054–226, 117 years away from the solar system, indicate that it is there. The distances between the structures do not change, indicating that they are under the influence of gravity near the planet.
“It was a shock to our team, its (exoplanets) movement was so terribly accurate that we couldn’t invent it.” says Professor Farihi in an interview with the BBC.
If the scientists’ findings are confirmed, it will be the first planet to orbit the white dwarf with the preconditions for life. The results should serve as a stimulus to find direct evidence of planets in dying stars.
“When astronomers discover something for the first time, it’s usually common in space.” upozornil profesor Farihi.
This should also be the case for white dwarfs and their planets with the preconditions for the existence of life. Most stars, even the Sun, will end up as white dwarfs. First they get bigger, they become red giants. He then throws away the gaseous envelope, leaving a small but cruelly dwarf emitting blue-white light.
The prey of the fallen star
In the aforementioned exoplanet, scientists assume that it has become the prey of a white dwarf. It probably engulfed its original planets, if any, during its expansion, when it grew into a red giant. Then, about two billion years ago, it attracted bodies from its surroundings by gravity, which eventually formed a planet.
Astronomers estimate that life-friendly conditions on the planet should last over two billion years. Now the planet is roughly in the middle of this interval.
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