Astronomers have found an ancient white dwarf, surrounded by a dense layer of rings. It used to be that it was impossible

Existing cosmological models suggest that white dwarfs form rings around themselves before

how to become white dwarfs. When a star, such as the Sun, dies, it turns into a red giant that burns the nearest planets. Other cosmic bodies fly away from the system, losing the gravitational pull of the star.

Flying bodies are pushing the red giantcomets and asteroids, which he destroys tidal forces. When the entire shell of the former star burns out, and only the core remains from the red giant, it becomes a white dwarf with a number of rings. However, astronomers believe that white dwarfs gradually attract material from the rings and absorb it. Therefore, such models work with white dwarfs no older than 100 Ma.

However, a white dwarf discovered by researchersmuch older - the age of LSPM J0207 + 3331, located 145 light-years from Earth in the constellation Capricorn, is 3 billion years. According to the existing models, he should have swallowed his rings long ago, but for some unknown reason this did not happen.

This white dwarf is so old that the processThe material feed into its rings should function for billions of years. Most of the models created by scientists to explain the rings around white dwarfs, work well only for bodies aged about 100 million years, so this star really casts doubt on our assumptions about how planetary systems are developing.

John Debes, lead author

Earlier observations of white dwarfs have shown that they gradually crystallize and become solid superdense objects, and not bodies from liquid plasma. The same fate after the "death" is waiting for the sun.