Half-destroyed ‘past Earth’ reveals our apocalyptic future – in doomed orbit around dead star that will tear planet apart
A DOOMED planet caught in its death throes with a dying star provides a window into Earth’s apocalyptic future.
That’s according to an alarming new study, which warns that the distant space skirmish mirrors the fate of our solar system.
Much like the newly discovered planet, Earth will be swallowed up by the Sun as it begins to age and die in 6billion years’ time.
“As stars age they grow into red giants, which ‘clean out’ much of the inner part of their planetary system,” said study scientist Dr Christopher Manser.
“In our solar system, the Sun will expand up to where the Earth currently orbits, and will wipe out Earth, Mercury, and Venus. Mars and beyond will survive and will move further out.”
His team at the University of Warwick discovered the planet using an enormous telescope in the Canary Islands.
It’s around 410 light years from Earth, and is actually the fragment of a planet that is half-dead as it has been torn apart by its star.
Boffins figured out the object is orbiting a dense type of star known as a white dwarf once every two hours.
The unnamed world is “closer than we would expect to find anything still alive”, they said.
It’s believed to have survived the cataclysmic death of its star because it’s mostly made of iron and nickel.
Other planets in the system were not so lucky. They were obliterated by the event, forming a bright disc of dust and debris that surrounds the white dwarf.
The system’s violent demise gives us a detailed look at how our Solar System will pull itself apart in several billion years’ time.
“The general consensus is that 5-6 billion years from now, our Solar System will be a white dwarf in place of the Sun, orbited by Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, the outer planets, as well as asteroids and comets,” Dr Manser said.
“Gravitational interactions … mean the bigger planets can easily nudge the smaller bodies onto an orbit that takes them close to the white dwarf, where they get shredded by its enormous gravity.”
The research was published in the journal Science.
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