What will happen after the sun dies? ‘Serendipitous’ discovery gives clues

[tennisluvrredux]

A distant gas giant found orbiting a white dwarf star suggests outer planets in our solar system might survive the sun’s demise

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An artist's impression of a planet (right) orbiting a white dwarf star. Photograph: Adam Makarenko/W. M. Keck Observatory

 

Donna Lu

@donnadlu

Wed 13 Oct 2021 17.30 BST

 

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A Jupiter-sized planet has been found orbiting a white dwarf star in the Milky Way, providing clues as to what will happen in our solar system when the sun eventually dies.

An international team of astronomers observed the phenomenon, which forms when a star runs out of nuclear fuel to burn, and dies.

 

The distant planet, a gas giant with a mass 1.4 times that of Jupiter, was able to survive the death of its host star.

The scientists say the discovery is in keeping with previous calculations that more than half of white dwarf stars may have similar giant planets orbiting them. Though the phenomenon had been predicted, it had never been observed before.

The study’s first author, Joshua Blackman of the University of Tasmania, said: “We predict this planet has a distance [from the white dwarf] of between 2.5 and six times the distance of the Earth from the sun, which is similar to that of Jupiter.”

 

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Blackman said the discovery shed light on what will happen when the sun runs out of fuel. “This is the first time we’ve found … a system which resembles what we expect to happen to our solar system in five or six billion years’ time.”

In five billion years, the sun is expected to expand, becoming what is known as a red giant. “In this process of the sun becoming a red giant, it’s likely going to obliterate the inner planets … likely Mercury and Venus will be destroyed,” Blackman said. Earth may survive the event, but will not be habitable.

Once the sun completely runs out fuel, it will contract into a cold corpse of a star – a white dwarf.

Themiya Nanayakkara, an astronomer at the Swinburne University of Technology who was not involved in the research, said the discovery suggested outer gas giant planets like Jupiter and Saturn could survive the death of the sun.

“It rules out theories in the past … that say you can’t have planets around white dwarfs,” Nanayakkara said.

The size of a star determines what it eventually turns into: bigger, heavier stars may end up as black holes or neutron stars instead.

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In the Milky Way, about 95% of all stars are destined to eventually become white dwarfs, Blackman said. “The universe is not old enough for that to have happened yet.”

White dwarfs give off only faint light, which makes them virtually impossible to observe directly from ground-based telescopes. Instead, the team found the dead star using a technique known as gravitational microlensing, where the light from a distant planet – the Jupiter-sized gas giant – is bent by the gravity of a closer star – in this case, the white dwarf.

The discovery was “completely serendipitous”, Blackman said. “We expected to see a normal star like our sun. So we spent quite a few years toiling over the data trying to determine if we made a mistake.”

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Based on their observations, the team were able to rule out other possibilities for the dead star, such as a black hole or neutron star.

The study was published in the journal Nature.

 

[Anta Assamey]

5 Billion Years anta... Slimmest of chances for even Humans to exist... 

[tennisluvrredux]

2 hours ago, Anta Assamey said:

5 Billion Years anta... Slimmest of chances for even Humans to exist... 

We will be long gone bro by then

[mirchi_bajji]

9 minutes ago, tennisluvrredux said:

We will be long gone bro by then

Why do you think so? Completely wiping off an intelligent civilization is not easy. 

[Anta Assamey]

1 hour ago, mirchi_bajji said:

Why do you think so? Completely wiping off an intelligent civilization is not easy. 

Intelligent… we are not even not even a Type 1 civilization

[Ellen]

1 hour ago, mirchi_bajji said:

Why do you think so? Completely wiping off an intelligent civilization is not easy. 

Lol 😂 😂😂😂

[tennisluvrredux]

4 hours ago, mirchi_bajji said:

Why do you think so? Completely wiping off an intelligent civilization is not easy. 

How do you know there's no intelligent life beyond our planet anywhere in the entire cosmos? 

[mirchi_bajji]

1 hour ago, Anta Assamey said:

Intelligent… we are not even not even a Type 1 civilization

How does that matter. We have ample time to become one. 

[mirchi_bajji]

1 hour ago, tennisluvrredux said:

How do you know there's no intelligent life beyond our planet anywhere in the entire cosmos? 

I did not get ur response. I am talking about humans and about our future. What has that got to do with aliens 

[mirchi_bajji]

1 hour ago, Ellen said:

Lol 😂 😂😂😂

Anta comedy emundi. You making this comment is because of evolution of intelligence in humans 

[dasari4kntr]

3 hours ago, mirchi_bajji said:

Why do you think so? Completely wiping off an intelligent civilization is not easy. 

nature doesnt care...we are intelligent or not...

 

 

[mirchi_bajji]

2 minutes ago, dasari4kntr said:

nature doesnt care...we are intelligent or not...

 

 

ofcourse it is indifferent. does not mean that it is destined to wipe us off. difference between us and dinosaurs is that we can see what is happening and take steps.

i cant think of any event that can wipe every single human from earth. even if small group survive , they will again thrive

[iddaritho]

2 hours ago, mirchi_bajji said:

ofcourse it is indifferent. does not mean that it is destined to wipe us off. difference between us and dinosaurs is that we can see what is happening and take steps.

i cant think of any event that can wipe every single human from earth. even if small group survive , they will again thrive

Thrive on what ? 
It is fact that 100 million layers there will be a different species ruling this earth when humans are long gone 

 

 

[mirchi_bajji]

14 minutes ago, iddaritho said:

Thrive on what ? 
It is fact that 100 million layers there will be a different species ruling this earth when humans are long gone 

 

 

Fact? 

Artificial habitats,  space stations , underground tunnel cities, underwater habitats...all are a possibility if something really bad happens to earth. 

Another species ruling earth is not a possibility as long as humans exist. 

You guys should understand that science achieved a lot in last 200 years. Give them 1000 or 2000 more and just imagine the capabilities. 

[jiggubhai]

7 hours ago, mirchi_bajji said:

Why do you think so? Completely wiping off an intelligent civilization is not easy. 

oka pedda raayi aakasam nundi padithe antha salla badataru

 

@Ellen @tennisluvrredux @dasari4kntr what say you?