Astronomers have discovered a large Neptune-sized planet orbiting a white dwarf star. The planet is four times bigger than the star, and the white dwarf appears to be slowly destroying the planet: the heat from the white dwarf is evaporating material from the planet's atmosphere, forming a comet-like tail.
A white dwarf is the end state for stars like our Sun. As a Sun-like star runs out of fuel, it expands into a red giant. During that phase, much of the star's mass is shed into space. After that, what's left is a compact, relatively cool, white dwarf.
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Evidence of an Alien Planet Spotted Around a White Dwarf, a Cosmic First | Space
For the first time ever, astronomers have spotted evidence of an exoplanet circling a superdense stellar corpse known as a white dwarf , a new study reports.
"This discovery is major progress, because over the past two decades, we had growing evidence that planetary systems survive into the white-dwarf stage," study lead author Boris Gaensicke, from the University of Warwick in England, said in a statement.
Video: Neptune-Sized Planet Around White Dwarf Discovery Explained
Related: The Strangest Alien Planets in Pictures
Fix Earth's climate crisis instead of dreaming of other planets, urges Nobel prize-winning
'We're not built to survive on any other planet than this one. We'd better spend our time and energy trying to fix it,' says scientist
"I think this viewpoint is irresponsible," Mr Queloz said at a news conference in Stockholm. "The stars are so far away, I think we should not really have any serious hope to escape Earth."
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He also told the conference, which he was attending to collect his share of the £641,000 prize fund, that it is "better to spend our time and energy trying to fix it rather than trying to imagine we will destroy it and leave it".
First Giant Exoplanet Planet Found Around White Dwarf Star [Video]
This illustration shows the white dwarf WDJ0914+1914 and its Neptune-like exoplanet. Since the icy giant orbits the hot white dwarf at close range, the extreme ultraviolet radiation from the star strips away the planet’s atmosphere. While most of this stripped gas escapes, some of it swirls into a disc, itself accreting onto the white dwarf. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser
“It was one of those chance discoveries,” says researcher Boris Gänsicke, from the University of Warwick in the UK, who led the study, published today in Nature. The team had inspected around 7000 white dwarfs observed by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and found one to be unlike any other. By analyzing subtle variations in the light from the star, they found traces of chemical elements in amounts that scientists had never before observed at a white dwarf.
This may worth something:
Ruling Planets in Astrology - What's My Zodiac Sign's Ruling Planet?
Every sun sign has a ruling planet (or two) which has a direct influence on the personality and strengths of those born under that sign—pause for *the more you know* rainbow. Okay, so want to know what they are? Of course you do! Reap your blessings from the Universe, people, and tune in to your planetary super-powers! Read on for yours.
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Mars has you bristling with red-hot ambition and passion, burning through the day and lighting up wherever you are. No one ignores you, that’s for sure, and if they do: B-I-G mistake. Huge! You demand and command attention and recognition.
Warframe: 5 Best Planets (& 5 That Are Terrible) | TheGamer
Space games are known for taking players to planets and moons from our solar system and beyond. Warframe is no exception, taking place in the Origin System with all the planets and moons most have come to know.
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Most planets have unique tilesets, missions, and rewards available for players to enjoy. Open worlds have been slowly added into the game over time, bringing the starting the planets more in line with more recent remastered tilesets. Some of these planets contain valuable, exclusive resources, while others do nothing of value and simply slow player progression. Here are the best and worst planets that Warframe has to offer.
There Could be Planets Orbiting Around Supermassive Black Holes - Universe Today
Perhaps the greatest discovery to come from the "Golden Age of General Relativity" (ca. 1960 to 1975) was the realization that a supermassive black hole (SMBH) exists at the center of our galaxy. In time, scientists came to realize that similarly massive black holes were responsible for the extreme amounts of energy emanating from the active galactic nuclei (AGNs) of distant quasars.
The study that describes their findings, titled " Planet Formation around Super Massive Black Holes in the ActiveGalactic Nuclei " was recently published in the Astrophysical Journal . The study was conducted by Professors Keiichi Wada and Yusuke Tsukamoto of Kagoshima University, with the assistance of Prof. Eiichiro Kokub from the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan (NAOJ).
The Cli-Fi Genre Gives Us a Peek at Planet Earth in 2040 | NRDC
By accelerating and intensifying a range of destructive natural phenomena—droughts, floods, wildfires, and tropical storms, to name just a few—climate change is also accelerating and intensifying the rate at which our physical world is being dramatically altered. In past eras our cities, towns, countrysides, forests, and coastlines didn't change much over the span of two decades.
Those searching for optimism in these thought-provoking stories will find it in relatively short supply (although it does emerge from time to time, poignantly and powerfully). But that shouldn't deter readers from sitting down with McSweeney's No. 58, bracing themselves, and engaging with the collection on its own terms. In a few weeks, we'll officially be just 20 years away from 2040—the year in which all of these tales take place.
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