An Earthlike planet may be orbiting in a dead star's 'habitable zone'

Space.com reports, "Fahiri cautioned that confirming the planet's existence with current technology will not be straightforward. "Confirmation may come by comparing computer models with further observations of the star, and orbiting debris," he said."

A word of caution is good here. The paper cited is very interesting to read. Relentless and complex transits from a planetesimal debris disc, https://academic.oup.com/mnras/article/511/2/1647/6524236?login=false, 08-Feb-2022.

"ABSTRACT This article reports quasi-continuous transiting events towards WD 1054–226 at d = 36.2 pc and V = 16.0 mag, based on simultaneous, high-cadence, multiwavelength imaging photometry using ULTRACAM over 18 nights from 2019 to 2020 March. The predominant period is 25.02 h and corresponds to a circular orbit with blackbody Teq = 323 K, where a planetary surface can nominally support liquid water..."

There is plenty taking place to interpret the observations at WD 1054-226. "Table 1.Published and calculated parameters of WD 1054–226." shows properties of the WD. It is about 0.62 solar mass with radius 0.012 solar radii and cooling age 1.3 Gyr. I note some points here from the paper.

"4 DISCUSSION This section provides some inferences based on the observed transits and ancillary data for WD 1054–226, where the data are interpreted as obstruction by clouds of dust or related structures ultimately derived from orbiting planetary bodies."

"4.2 Orbital geometry The period of 25.02 h places the semimajor axis at 3.69 R⊙ for a M* = 0.62 M⊙ host star, while for Teff = 7910 K, R* = 0.012 R⊙, and circular orbits the equilibrium temperature of blackbodies is 323 K and thus in the habitable zone of WD 1054–226. The geometry of the orbit remains uncertain and cannot be directly inferred from the data in hand. While the circumstellar debris is strikingly clear from the dimming events, there is currently no evidence for the T ≈ 1000 K dust emission that is commonly seen around polluted white dwarfs (e.g. Xu, Lai & Dennihy 2020), where the debris is generally inferred to be located within or near the Roche limit (Farihi 2016). Two possible orbital geometries are explored, either circular in a disc-like configuration or highly eccentric with a periastron near or within the Roche limit. On the one hand, a circular or low-eccentricity orbit would imply the underlying parent bodies and their debris are distant from the polluted surface of the star, where ongoing or recent accretion is necessary. An orbiting ring of debris within the habitable zone would emit at a narrow range of dust temperatures near the equilibrium temperature corresponding to the semimajor axis. On the other hand, if the observed transiting debris is currently passing within the Roche limit, then the orbital eccentricity is e≳0.7 (Fig. 11), and there will be signatures of both warmer and cooler dust emission from material as it orbits near periastron and apastron, respectively."

I note the caution here, "The geometry of the orbit remains uncertain and cannot be directly inferred from the data in hand." A WD star also emits much more UV light than our Sun does when defining the HZ.
 

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