Hubble Witnesses Massive Comet-Like Object Pollute Atmosphere of a White Dwarf

Artist's conception of white dwarf star destroying Ceres-like asteroid

Picture The real Death Star - an artist's conception of a Ceres-like asteroid slowly disintegrating as it orbits a white dwarf star. (Credit: Mark A. Garlick)

NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope have witnessed for the 1st time a massive object with the makeup of a comet being ripped apart and scattered in the atmosphere of a white dwarf, the burned-out remains of a compact star. The object has a chemical composition similar to Halley’s Comet, but it is 100,000 times more massive and has a much higher amount of water. It is also rich in the elements essential for life, including nitrogen, carbon, oxygen, and sulfur. 

Caption: This artist's concept shows a massive, comet-like object falling toward a white dwarf. New Hubble Space Telescope findings are evidence for a belt of comet-like bodies orbiting the white dwarf, similar to our solar system's Kuiper Belt. The findings also suggest the presence of one or more unseen surviving planets around the white dwarf, which may have perturbed the belt to hurl icy objects into the burned-out star.

 Credits: NASA, ESA, and Z. Levay (STScI)

 When Sun-like stars reach the end of their nuclear fuel, they swell first into a red giant star before losing their outer layers and turning into a white dwarf star.

What Happens when a Star or Sun Becomes a Red Super Giant? 

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What are white dwarfs?

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What are neutron stars? 

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Most stars we see in the sky, possibly 50%, have a buddy star that orbits them, like the planets orbit our Sun. 

These systems are called “binary stars.”

When the sun dies in about five billion years, it will swell and devour the inner planets, enflaming Mercury and Venus, and potentially Earth. But if we somehow survive the terrestrial ordeal, we may find our planet being shredded as it spirals into the white dwarf.

Will the Earth survive the Sun's Red Giant phase?

If the output of the sun is slowly increasing will we have to move to survive?

Who cares. This is a long ways off if this will happen 5 billion years from now. 

Snarky Alert!

Will they call it global warming at the early kickoff of the sun's energy becoming uncomfortably hot for life on Earth?

Smack down -- Excuse my over active mind cartooning. 

 Seriously, eventually in about 2 1/2 billion years later, the sun will begin to run out of free hydrogen, and swell into the big Red Giant Star phase - gobbling nearby planets

Earth will may ultimately be vaporized by a dead Sun.

Mercifully, we won't be around to experience it.

RoCk On My Fellow Earthling

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