When the Sun runs out of fuel in about 5 billion years, it will expand into a red giant and may engulf nearby planets before shedding its outer layers and becoming a white dwarf. The debris rings now observed around the white dwarf J1328-1450 offer a possible preview of that transformation—and may indicate that at least two planets survived the star’s evolution.
The star’s two debris rings appear to have been shaped by objects that astronomers have not yet directly identified. Their structure suggests that the remnants of the system could include at least two surviving planets after the star changed into a white dwarf.
Researchers think the two objects could differ substantially in size. Objects close to white dwarfs may be only a few kilometers across, while more distant ones could be as large as Pluto’s moon. Their interactions with surrounding debris would help explain the formation of the two rings, but the objects have not been confirmed as separate bodies. Another possibility is that the rings originated from different parts of a single planet-like object, such as its crust or core.
This story was originally published by WIRED (Spanish version) and translated from Spanish.
Source: www.wired.com
