A shocking planet is still lurking among the debris of a moon-like structure orbiting a white dwarf star 118 light-years away from us.
Using the ULTRACAM device on the European Southern Observatory’s (ESO) 3.5-meter New Technology Telescope located at La Silla Observatory in Chile and NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), astronomers led by Professor Jay Farhi from the University of London (UK) recorded significant light changes from the white dwarf star WD 1054-226, according to Sci-News.
Graphic depicting the mysterious white dwarf star system recently discovered, with a habitable planet similar to Earth orbiting its “zombie” parent star – (Image: Mark A. Garlick).
They discovered distinct light patterns corresponding to 65 evenly spaced planetary debris clouds orbiting the star every 25 hours. These debris fragments have sizes and structures akin to moons, arranged in a ring formation.
The regularity of these transit structures suggests they must be maintained in a stable gravitational interaction between the central white dwarf star and a planet, believed to be comparable in size to the rocky planets of our Solar System.
According to the Daily Mail, although the planet cannot be directly observed, the positions of the debris clouds indicate that this hidden planet must be located about 2.5 million kilometers away, which is 1.7% of the distance between the Earth and the Sun.
Based on the properties of the central star, this planet must reside within the habitable Goldilocks zone of the star system.
Even more remarkably, it is a planet that has recently been born. The white dwarf star is essentially a “zombie” of the universe, having gone through a “death” phase due to energy depletion. Between the “living” phase of a star like the Sun and the white dwarf phase, the star undergoes a “red giant” phase: suddenly expanding and engulfing some nearby planets.
“The planet in the dark” is in the engulfed area if it existed before the red giant phase, therefore it must be a planet formed after the star has become a white dwarf. This is not the first time scientists have recorded white dwarf stars thought to be dead still giving birth to planets.
The study was recently published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
