The white dwarf eats the fragments of the planets. Astrophysicists study space cannibalism

Astrophysicists from the USA and Germany have been analyzing data from various telescopes for several years,

who recorded the consequences of “death”star that produced the white dwarf G238-44. The study found that the explosion of the original star destroyed the planetary system. Numerous pieces of debris move along random trajectories, gradually accreting onto the star. A similar future awaits the solar system.

In the process of evolution, stars like the Sunfirst, they expand intensively, turning into red giants, and when all the fuel reserves are used up, they form a planetary nebula with a white dwarf in the center, the scientists explain. A star ejects most of its outer material before dying, destroying objects in the planetary system that orbit it.

In a new study whose results werepresented by the American Astronomical Society, scientists have shown that the “death throes” of a star are so powerful and destroy and destabilize the planetary system so much that the formed white dwarf collects debris from both the system itself and beyond.

A very faint accretion disk is composed offragments of broken bodies falling on a white dwarf. Larger gas giant planets may still exist in the system. Much further away is a belt of icy bodies such as comets, which eventually also feed the dead star. Image: NASA, ESA, Joseph Olmsted (STScI)

It is noted that the researchers observed for the first timebehind a white dwarf that simultaneously consumes both rock-metal and icy material formed after the destruction of the planetary system. This discovery, as the authors of the work note, is interesting not only for studying the final stage of the evolution of a star, but also in order to understand the composition of planetary systems.

Analysis of spectral data allows us to estimatethe chemical composition of objects that "fall" on a white dwarf. The fact that the star attracted not only the rocky remains of the planets, but also ice objects, shows that ice reservoirs may be widespread in other planetary systems. At least many of these objects appear to have moved in the Kuiper Belt analogue of the G238-44 planetary system.

One of the versions of the development of life on Earthsuggests that impacts with small icy objects (comets and asteroids) led to irrigation of rocky planets in the early solar system. And, as a result, the emergence of life. A new study shows that similar processes could occur in other systems.

Cover image: NASA, ESA, J. Olmsted (STScI)

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