Remnants of Ancient Earth-Like World Seen Being Eaten by a Star

The main life of a star like the Sun will not be a quiet affair, even if it does end in a supernova.

As the star runs out of fuel and becomes unstable, it puffs up to an enormous size before blowing off its outer material and entering a small, ultra dense white dwarf.

The red giant stage could be extended as far as Mars for the Sun.

White dwarf stars that have planets suggest that they can form after it. Many exoplanets are eaten by the white dwarf.

The study of necroplanetology is based on the pollution of the atmospheres of white dwarf stars.

The oldest known example is an exoplanet devoured by a white dwarf.

The white dwarf is extremely small and dim, with a red hue that is unlike any other white dwarf. The second white dwarf star was formed 9 billion years ago. The team found that both stars are polluted by falling debris.

The red star, named WD J2147-4035, is the oldest polluted white dwarf discovered yet, while the blue star, calledWD J1922+0233, is potentially more interesting.

"We're finding the oldest stellar remnants in the Milky Way that are polluted by once Earth-like planets." It's amazing to think that the planets died a long time before the Earth was formed.

We can look at the chemistry of a star's atmosphere by looking at the light it emits. Some wavelengths are more powerful than others. Elements can absorb and re-emit light from the stars.

It's not clear which elements are at play, but scientists are starting to identify which absorption and emission features on a spectrum are associated with which elements

The two white dwarfs were subjected to various studies after being identified by the European Space Agency.

Since white dwarf stars are no longer powered by the fusion of elements in their core, their temperatures are slowly decreasing at a known rate, and researchers were able to gauge how long since they formed from a Sun-like star.

They used the stars' data to determine their atmospheric composition. They found several substances on the red star. They found several minerals on the star.

Since white dwarfs are so heavy, heavy elements like these should disappear into the white dwarf's interior, beyond detection, very quickly.

Since the star turned into a white dwarf more than 10 billion years ago, it is the oldest known planetary system.

A Sun-like star that lived and died billions of years before the Solar System formed has been suggested as the cause of the debris pollution.

It's like a fossil record of the universe that can show us what planets looked like before we arrived.

When the universe was formed more than 10 billion years ago, it was less metal-rich than it is today.

The two white dwarfs give an exciting window into planetary formation in a metal-poor and gas-rich environment that was different to the conditions when the solar system was formed.

The research has been published in a journal.