Science & Tech · Space · 9 hrs ago
Two debris rings around a dead star may point to surviving rocky bodies
Astronomers found two rings of gas around WD J1328–1450, a white dwarf studied with a telescope in Chile.
A white dwarf is the dense, burnt-out core left after a star sheds its outer layers.
As a star like the Sun dies, it swells and can engulf nearby planets, while surviving rocky bodies may break apart and leave debris around it.
The two rings are separated by a clear gap, unlike the single ring seen around other known dead stars with gas discs.
The team thinks two surviving rocky bodies may be supplying the gas, but neither body has been seen directly.
The rings stayed stable between observations in 2021 and 2023, and the system may offer clues to Earth’s distant future as the Sun approaches the end of its life.
Astronomers report two separate rings of gas around the white dwarf WD J1328–1450, divided by a clear gap.
They say the rings may be supplied by two rocky bodies that survived the star’s transformation.
Neither body has been directly observed; the team inferred them from the gas’s behavior.
The rings’ spectral pattern remained stable in observations made in 2021 and 2023.
The finding may offer clues to how rocky worlds can survive the death of a star like the Sun.
- Who
- A team led by Nicola Gentile Fusillo, an astronomer at the University of Trieste.
- What
- The team identified two gas rings around the white dwarf WD J1328–1450 and suggested that surviving rocky bodies may supply them.
- When
- The ring pattern was observed in 2021 and 2023. The article was published on November 3, 2026.
- Where
- Around the white dwarf WD J1328–1450; the team studied it using the Very Large Telescope in Chile.
- Why
- The team investigated the rings to understand the debris around the white dwarf and whether rocky bodies survived the star’s transformation.
This story does not have two clearly opposing sides.
WD J1328–1450 became a white dwarf, according to the team’s estimate.
The team observed the gas-line pattern around the white dwarf.
A later observation showed that the pattern had remained stable since 2021.
Earth.com published the report.
- White dwarf
- WD J1328–1450
- Inner ring
- About 60,000 to 147,000 miles (97,000 to 237,000 km) from the star
- Outer ring
- About 234,000 to 835,000 miles (376,000 to 1.34 million km) from the star
- Spectral lines
- Calcium and oxygen lines showed four peaks, which the team matched to two rings
- Observations
- 2021 and 2023
What people are saying
We have known for some time that planets may survive beyond the transformation of their central star, but this is the first example of a complex system with a double debris disc and potentially two surviving planetesimals
The structure we see in this system is particularly intriguing because the two gaseous rings are remarkably stable and remain separated by a gap