Evidence of an Alien Planet Spotted Around a White Dwarf, a Cosmic First

[Admin]

For the first time ever, astronomers have spotted evidence of a planet circling a superdense stellar corpse known as a white dwarf, a new study reports.

Evidence of an Alien Planet Spotted Around a White Dwarf, a Cosmic First : Read more

 

[rod]

White dwarfs are reported with exoplanets but not like this report shows, e.g. WD 0137-349 b, WD 1145+017 b (some may have brown dwarf companions). Explaining the origin of a white dwarf with a possible gas giant like Neptune is difficult like explaining hot jupiters. in situ formation with little orbital history change in the systems indicate problems for stellar evolution modeling. The report does not suggest in situ formation though. Glad to see in the report "To be clear: The researchers did not directly observe a planet around WDJ0914+1914. But the available data point strongly toward its existence, team members said."

White dwarfs are now shown to have *accretion disks* or disks, young stars like T Tauri may have accretion disks too. Stellar evolution theory is very interesting.

 

[AstronomerTim]

Nice to see the comments back so people can kick around some ideas. Stars, so fascinating there has to be thousands if not millions of unique sub-types. I read on Wikipedia that a white dwarf has a habitable zone that may last 3 billion years. It seems doubtful any life could survive all the crazy events up to that point but a star fairing civilization may like to set up shop on a planet like that. Tidally locked so the sun would never go down.

 

[AstronomerTim]

White dwarfs are reported with exoplanets but not like this report shows, e.g. WD 0137-349 b, WD 1145+017 b (some may have brown dwarf companions). Explaining the origin of a white dwarf with a possible gas giant like Neptune is difficult like explaining hot jupiters. in situ formation with little orbital history change in the systems indicate problems for stellar evolution modeling. The report does not suggest in situ formation though. Glad to see in the report "To be clear: The researchers did not directly observe a planet around WDJ0914+1914. But the available data point strongly toward its existence, team members said."

White dwarfs are now shown to have *accretion disks* or disks, young stars like T Tauri may have accretion disks too. Stellar evolution theory is very interesting.

Rod the wiki page on white dwarfs say that in our case once the sun goes white dwarf then all the planets out to Neptune will be evaporated. However with a life span of 3 billion years perhaps close by systems could introduce new material to the white dwarf system and planet formation could happen in few hundred million years. The possibilities are endless and I think there are going to astonishing surprises if we can just get the science and engineering done to allow us to discover.

 

[rod]

Rod the wiki page on white dwarfs say that in our case once the sun goes white dwarf then all the planets out to Neptune will be evaporated. However with a life span of 3 billion years perhaps close by systems could introduce new material to the white dwarf system and planet formation could happen in few hundred million years. The possibilities are endless and I think there are going to astonishing surprises if we can just get the science and engineering done to allow us to discover.

Rod says - more testing is needed Currently we have 4142 confirmed exoplanets according to my canonical reference site, The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia So far, I do not see any *confirmed exoplanets* that are in the habitable zone of a white dwarf star. WDs also have very high surface temperatures, some 30,000 K or so. The wavelength of light chiefly emitted will be very energetic, like UV or more compared to the Sun. Astronomer Tim, you may enjoy this note. Tonight from 1700-1830 EST, I was out viewing 4 Vesta asteroid in Cetus and the waxing gibbous Moon. I tracked 4 Vesta asteroid since 03-Nov-19 in Taurus, moving retrograde now through Cetus. Much fun. Visible in my 10x50 binoculars and also 90-mm refractor at 31x. I used Stellarium and Starry Night to create sky charts for my observation log showing the views and Telrad circles. While viewing in Cetus, I noticed a polar orbiting satellite near 2nd magnitude moving south, and later a meteor streak in the eyepiece while viewing 4 Vesta in Cetus. This is why I like to see a *confirmed* exoplanet in a WD habitable zone

 

[AstronomerTim]

Rod says - more testing is needed Currently we have 4142 confirmed exoplanets according to my canonical reference site, The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia So far, I do not see any *confirmed exoplanets* that are in the habitable zone of a white dwarf star. WDs also have very high surface temperatures, some 30,000 K or so. The wavelength of light chiefly emitted will be very energetic, like UV or more compared to the Sun. Astronomer Tim, you may enjoy this note. Tonight from 1700-1830 EST, I was out viewing 4 Vesta asteroid in Cetus and the waxing gibbous Moon. I tracked 4 Vesta asteroid since 03-Nov-19 in Taurus, moving retrograde now through Cetus. Much fun. Visible in my 10x50 binoculars and also 90-mm refractor at 31x. I used Stellarium and Starry Night to create sky charts for my observation log showing the views and Telrad circles. While viewing in Cetus, I noticed a polar orbiting satellite near 2nd magnitude moving south, and later a meteor streak in the eyepiece while viewing 4 Vesta in Cetus. This is why I like to see a *confirmed* exoplanet in a WD habitable zone

Rod hey that's a good observation. I did it twice or three times with a pair of 7x30 binoculars out buy the garbage cans back in the 80's. You just never know until the object has moved with relation to background stars but the light had an icy non-twinkling nature to it. At that time Vesta was in Taurus. Fall before last I observed Uranus with the naked eye for the first time in excellent conditions in the dark mountains of Canada.