Science & Tech · Space · 2 hrs ago
Hubble data point to a possible second-generation planet around a white dwarf
A team studying old Hubble Space Telescope observations found unusual signs of niobium around the white dwarf HS 0209+0832.
A white dwarf is the dense remnant left when a star sheds its outer layers.
Most planets form from gas and dust around a newly born star, as happened in our Solar System.
The team says the detected niobium may point to a massive planet formed later from material expelled by the dying star.
Such a world is called a second-generation planet.
If confirmed, it would be the first confirmed example.
The finding comes from reexamining observations Hubble made in 1999 with an updated chemical database.
The team’s planet interpretation remains a possibility, not a confirmed discovery.
Hubble data show an unusually high abundance of niobium in the white dwarf system HS 0209+0832.
Researchers say the finding may point to a massive planet formed from material shed by a dying star.
The planet has not been confirmed; if confirmed, it would be the first known second-generation planet.
The international team reexamined archival Hubble observations using an updated chemical database.
The study was published in Nature Astronomy on October 5.
- Who
- Researchers led by a team from the University of Warwick, with an international group of collaborators.
- What
- The team found niobium signatures in Hubble data that may indicate a second-generation planet around a white dwarf.
- When
- The Hubble data were first collected in 1999; the study was published on October 5.
- Where
- The system is HS 0209+0832. Its location is Not stated.
- Why
- Niobium is made in the conditions of dying stars, so its abundance may indicate material from a stellar remnant formed a planet.
This story does not have two clearly opposing sides.
Hubble observed HS 0209+0832 and detected roughly 100 unidentified chemical signatures.
Researchers used an updated chemical database to reexamine the Hubble data and identified niobium among the signatures.
The team’s findings were published in Nature Astronomy.
- System
- HS 0209+0832
- White dwarf radius
- About 1% of the Sun’s radius
- White dwarf mass
- About 60% of the Sun’s mass
- First Hubble observation
- 1999
- Unidentified signatures
- Roughly 100
- Publication
- Nature Astronomy, October 5
What people are saying
Rather than the white dwarf stage being a kind of epilogue to the story of a star and its planets, this research points to the systems we are familiar with only being the first chapter of a potentially much longer tale, with some new characters showing up.
What Hubble is showing us in this white dwarf system is something we haven’t seen before: a high abundance of the element niobium, the signature of which I was unfamiliar with when I first found it in the archival data.
Niobium and other elements heavier than iron are astronomically special because, unlike many common elements, they are not formed in the cores of stars by thermonuclear fusion.
Sources
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