Planet survived star’s death

The world is seven times larger than the white dwarf star it orbits

A giant

planet around a white dwarf could have survived the star’s death throes, according to the latest observations with the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS).

A white dwarf is the remnant left behind after a Sun-like star runs out of fuel, becomes a red giant and then loses its outer layers. “The white dwarf creation process destroys nearby planets, and anything that later gets too close is usually torn apart by its immense gravity,” says Andrew Vanderburg of the University of Texas, Austin, who led the work.

The planet, WD 1856 b, is so close that it orbits in only 34

WD 1856 b, a potential Jupiter-sized planet, orbits a smaller white dwarf hours, but it is likely to have been further out when the star was in its red giant phase.

“We’ve seen that planets could scatter inward, too, but this appears to be the first time we’ve seen a planet that made the whole journey intact,” says Vanderburg. exoplanets.nasa.gov/tess

Comet aurora

Ultraviolet aurora have been seen dancing around comet 67P/ChuryumovGerasimenko – the first time such a light show has been seen around a celestial object other than a planet or moon. Recently analysed images taken by the Rosetta spacecraft show the solar wind interacting with the comet’s coma to produce the aurora.

Dark skies in NI

The Dark Sky Observatory and Visitor Centre in the Davagh Forest, Mid Ulster is finally due to open on 17 October, after being delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The forest is Northern Ireland’s first accredited International Dark Sky Park.

A Pi-fect planet

A ‘pi-planet’ has been discovered zipping around its host star once every 3.14 days. The planet has a radius about 0.95 times the size of Earth’s, but it isn’t thought to be habitable as its tight orbit means the surface temperature is expected to be around 180ºC – hot enough to bake an actual pie.