RMF 24: Astronomers have found the “Death Star” – Interia

The Death Star there and astronomers already know where it is. Although we fortunately did not threaten her case it shows how far in the future may also be the fate of our solar system. Researchers at Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA) found her in the constellation Virgo, about 570 light-years from us, where literally tearing apart orbiting the planet.

So you can imagine crumbling planet

/ press releases

NASA scientists argue that the vast majority of Earth-like planets – and thus habitable – not yet established. We were lucky because the Earth is truly unique. Read more

Death Star from “Star Wars” was the target fictitious, and now for the first time, astronomers have discovered a star which this name should be in reality. Observations made in the framework of the extended probe mission, Kepler Space Telescope allowed to see disintegrating planet orbiting at a very close orbit around a white dwarf star in the constellation Virgo, about 570 light-years from Earth.

The planet orbits its host star in over 4.5 hours in an orbit with a radius of around 800,000 kilometers, twice more than the distance of the Moon from Earth. The intense radiation of the stars and powerful tidal forces make the planet a size comparable to the dwarf planet Ceres literally crumbling before our eyes. The passage of the planet across the face of the star makes its brightness decreases by up to 40 percent, and the nature of the weakness of brightness indicates that the space rock surrounded by a cloud of dust and debris. “This is something no man had ever seen” – says the first author of the paper, Andrew Vanderburg of the CfA. “In our eyes, breaks up a planetary system,” – he added.

By the way astronomers were able to confirm the theory about the causes of “impurities” white dwarfs metals. This particular white dwarf is a star which is a remnant of the break-up of the star several times larger than the sun. When such a star ends its life, it swells into a red giant, then discards its outer layers. It remains the core of the size of Earth, composed mainly of carbon and oxygen with a thin layer of hydrogen or helium.

Over time, however, astronomers observe in the spectrum of white dwarfs traces of silicon and iron. It’s a surprise, because these heavier elements should get stuck in them, and does not give any signal. The theory predicted that probably these elements, impurities that arise as a result of absorption rocky planets or asteroids. The latest example of the observed stars, seems to confirm this theory. “We have clear evidence that white dwarfs are contaminated when they destroy orbiting rocky planet” – emphasizes Vanderburg.

The question of the origin of such rocky, crumbling buildings. The latest example suggests that planets whose orbits become unstable. After excessive closer to the white dwarf, are targeted, high temperature, and the force of gravity literally tear them apart. In this particular case, soon it will last. According to astronomers – mountain million years.

Grzegorz Jasinski