Author: Maria Temming / Source: Science News
Against all odds, a small planetary body called a planetesimal has survived the infernal death of its sunlike star and now orbits the white dwarf that remains.
When most planet-hosting stars run out of hydrogen fuel, they blow out their outer shells of gas, obliterating anything within their inner solar systems and leaving behind a dead star called a white dwarf. Planets orbiting farther out can survive this initial cataclysm, but if those planets move in closer, they also get ripped apart (SN Online: 10/21/15) and gobbled up by the dead star’s intense gravity (SN: 9/24/11, p. 10).
The rare discovery of the intact planetesimal still orbiting close to the white dwarf SDSS J1228+1040, reported in the April 5 Science, could offer insight into the fate of solar systems like our…
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