A white dwarf is the ancient star at the center of it all and it is only 90 light years away. Our own Sun is predicted to eventually become a white dwarf, meaning this ravaged system could be a glimpse of the fate of our own.
"We're finding the oldest stellar remnants in the Milky Way that are polluted by once Earth-like planets," said study lead author Abbigail Elms. It's amazing to think that the planets died a long time before the Earth was formed.
The European Southern Observatory's X-shooter instrument on the Very Large Telescope was used to determine that WDJ2147-4035 is over 10 billion years old.
Analyses of the data allowed the astronomer to determine the white dwarf's composition, as well as find remnants of an old planetary system that survived the star's disappearance into a white dwarf.
WDJ1922+0233 was also studied in the study. The star is polluted by materials that are similar to the continental crust.
"These metal-polluted stars show that Earth isn't unique, there are other planetary systems out there with planetary bodies similar to the Earth."
When metals were less abundant, rocky planets were formed in the universe. Our own solar system is also a portal into ruin.
Astronomers are puzzled by a planet with unusual low density.
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