For the first time, a planet has been discovered orbiting a white dwarf, also known as a dead star.
This exoplanet, a planet outside of our solar system, is the size of Jupiter and it's known as WD 1586 b.
Finding an intact planet in such a close orbit around a white dwarf raises questions about how it got there, and how it survived the star's evolution into a white dwarf. "We think this star died and became a white dwarf roughly six billion years ago -- so long ago that the Sun, Earth, and solar system hadn't even been formed yet," said Ian Crossfield, study coauthor and assistant professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Kansas, in an email.
Infrared light was key in helping scientists determine if the object was a small star or a large planet. Stars emit infrared light, but planets are colder than stars, so they don't. When our own sun becomes a red giant, is it possible that Earth could survive this stellar evolution?
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