A world located 86 light-years away has provided a time window that helps scientists predict the future of Earth.
According to Science Alert, a research team led by astrophysicist Benjamin Zuckerman from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) presented astonishing findings about G238-44, a white dwarf star, at the 240th meeting of the American Astronomical Society.
Graphic of a dead planetary system around a white dwarf star – (Image: NASA/ESA/SIScl)
A white dwarf is essentially a “zombie” of Sun-like stars, possessing immense mass but compressed into a small object the size of Earth. When stars exhaust their energy, they swell up one last time into a red giant, before collapsing into a white dwarf. Our Sun will undergo this transformation in less than 5 billion years.
Like other white dwarfs, G238-44 is not completely dead. Researchers have found shocking evidence indicating that this deceased parent star is tearing apart and consuming the planets it once created and nurtured while it was “alive.”
It is so greedy that it is “feeding” on materials from the cold outer edges of its old star system, similar to the icy materials found in the Kuiper Belt beyond our solar system. This was revealed through the metal and rock materials that this dead star has recently accumulated.
Ten elements heavier than helium have been discovered: carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, magnesium, aluminum, silicon, phosphorus, sulfur, calcium, and iron, pointing directly to planets, asteroids, and other objects in the white dwarf’s meal.
This is the first time a white dwarf has been observed accumulating materials from both inside and outside its star system.
This presents a “time window” that is chilling for humanity. If we are fortunate enough to escape the risk of the Sun becoming too large during the red giant phase, swallowing Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars; we may still be torn apart during the white dwarf phase.
