One of the oldest rocky and frozen planetary systems in the Milky Way has been detected by astronomers, and it orbits the oldest star in our galaxy, which is accreting debris from circling planetesimals.
Based on their research, scientists determined that a weak white dwarf about 90 light-years from Earth and the remnants of its orbital planetary system are older than 10 billion years. The research, which was headed by academics from the University of Warwick, was released in the November issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
White dwarfs are the last resting place for the vast majority of stars, including our own Sun. A white dwarf is an exhausted star that has shed its outer layers and is contracting and cooling. There will be disruption and possible destruction of any planets in orbit, and any leftover material will accrete onto the surface of the white dwarf.
A group of scientists analyzed two out-of-the-ordinary white dwarfs found by the European Space Agency's GAIA space observatory. They're both stars, and they're both contaminated with planetoid trash. In the nearby galactic neighbourhood, one of them was discovered to be extraordinarily blue, while the other is the faintest and reddest discovered to far. The scientific group dug further into each of them.
Using spectroscopic and photometric data collected by GAIA, the Dark Energy Survey, and the X-Shooter instrument at the European Southern Observatory, the researchers determined the age of the stars based on their rate of cooling. According to their research, the'red' star WDJ2147-4035 is around 10.7 billion years old. Of that time, 10.2 billion years were spent cooling as a white dwarf.
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The second white dwarf they found (WDJ1922+0233) was very dissimilar to the mystery one. It sounds and feels more natural. Scientists found that this star has sucked in rock from other planets, much like Earth's rocky crust. However, the other solar system demonstrates that Earth isn't that special in the universe after all, since there are other solar systems out there that are comparable to our own.
However, these two solar systems have several extinct planet graveyards. More than 95% of sun-like stars end up as white dwarfs. When they reach the end of their existence, they swell to the size of enormous red giants and disturb or destroy all in their path. As the Sun becomes larger, it will swallow Mercury, Venus, and maybe Earth before shedding its outer layers. There will remain remnants of planets and moons that were ripped apart by the red giants. Actually, the residual star will be a white dwarf.
