Astronomer have discovered a real-life 'Death Star' in the act
of destroying a planet and is continuing its vicious journey. Last year
astronomers by using the Very Large Telescope in Chile discovered an asteroid beingtorn apart by a white dwarf - a small star that has 'run out of fuel' - and
creating a blushing debris ring. Now, astronomers believe that it may have
'eaten' at least 15.
The discovery has delivered an insight of what is expected to
happen to our own solar system when the sun runs out of its fuel. Lead author
Boris Gänsicke, an astronomer at the University of Warwick, told Space.com “Our
sun will one day balloon out to become a red giant star, wiping out Mercury and
Venus and maybe Earth, before it becomes a white dwarf. By looking at this
white dwarf, we get a look at what the future of the solar system might be
like”
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| Image Credit: Mark A. Garlick |
This dead star, rampaging through the universe, is a white
dwarf known as WD 1145+017. According to the research paper published on Feb. 3
in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters, WD 1145+017 lies almost 570
light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo.
Gänsicke discovered that this killer white dwarf system has
swiftly evolved in the just a few months since the discovery. Gänsicke said
“It's exciting and unexpected that we can see this kind of dramatic change on
human timescales” Instead of discovering strong indication of just one body
around the white dwarf The team 'identified six, but there are clearly more —
it could be 10, maybe 15.’ Gänsicke said.
These bodies are circling the dead star at about the similar
distance as the planetesimal that previous investigation spotted, and are each
two to four times the size of the white dwarf. Astronomers suggest that these
bodies are not huge, solid rocks, but instead are enormous clouds of gas and
dust rolling from much smaller rocks that are now disintegrating.
Gänsicke and his associates plan on investigating this white
dwarf system further.
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