Planet is Being Disintegrated by Its Star
Posted on October 21, 2015
A planet is being disintegrated by its star, a white dwarf. The data evidence for the star in a death spiral around its star was first provided by the Kepler K2 mission. The white dwarf is located about 570 light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo.
Kelper data revealed a regular dip every 4.5 hours. This places the object in an orbit about 520,000 miles from the white dwar. It is the first planetary object to be seen transiting a white dwarf. Additional data from other ground-based telecopes - MINERVA telescopes at Whipple Observatory, the MMT, MEarth-South, and Keck - showed additional chunks of material in orbit around the star. The transit signal also showed a comet-like pattern. The astronomers from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) says data indicates a the presence of an extended cloud of dust surrounding the fragment.
Andrew Vanderburg of the CfA says in a statement, "This is something no human has seen before. We're watching a solar system get destroyed."
The astronomers say the remaining objects surrounding the white dwarf will not last forever. They are being vaporized by the intense heat of the white dwarf. They also are orbiting very close to the tidal radius. This is the distance at which gravitational tides from the white dwarf can rip apart a rocky body.
A research paper on the white star eating its solar system was published in the journal, Nature.
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