About 1,500 light years away lies the remnant of a star that was once like our own, and it’s providing astronomers with clues as to what might happen in our solar system after the sun dies.

In roughly six billion years, after it has run out of energy, the sun will swell, enveloping Mercury, Venus, and possibly Earth. It will then leave behind a small, hot star, slightly larger than Earth, known as a white dwarf.

Astronomers have discovered an unusual pair: a white dwarf, called WDJ0914+1914, with a giant Neptune-like planet in its orbit. It is the first time such a large planet has been found in such a tight orbit around a white dwarf.

But this star isn’t the life-giving companion our sun is to us; it’s stripping away the giant planet’s atmosphere.

An animation shows the white dwarf and its much larger, Neptune-like planet.

Astronomers had theorized that what might reside around a white dwarf would be more terrestrial-like planets (think Earth and Mars) or even asteroids — not a gas giant like the one they found.

“It’s quite a unique system so far,” said Boris Gansicke, an astronomer from the University of Warwick in the U.K. and lead author of the study published in Nature. “But we hope to find additional systems in the future.”

The planet is believed to be at least twice as large as the star, which it orbits once every 10 days.

Because of its close proximity to the searing hot white dwarf — which is roughly 28,000 C, or five times the temperature of the sun — most of the planet’s atmosphere is being swept away. Some of it is pulled into a disk that eventually swirls into the star, at a rate of about 3,000 tonnes per second.

It was this disk that tipped off astronomers to the giant planet’s presence.

Chance finding

The team of astronomers found it after poring over data of more than 7,000 white dwarfs observed by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey in Sunspot, New Mexico

One particular star stood out from the rest.

Data revealed quantities of hydrogen, oxygen and sulphur in the star — elements that shouldn’t be there, given the star had shed its outer core.

Co-author Nicola Gentile set aside the observations, believing it could be evidence of a binary system that contained a second star that hadn’t shed its core.

Gansicke said he looked at the data and realized there were traces of oxygen that he’d never seen before in a binary system.

“I said it was very unlikely to be a white dwarf binary system.”

The team then used the X-shooter instrument on the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Atacama, Chile, to conduct followup observations. Astronomers were able to take a better look at the star’s spectrum, which is the light it emits separated into individual colours.

Observing a spectrum also reveals the elements contained in a star, such as hydrogen, helium, oxygen and more.

The findings suggested that a giant, Neptune-like planet was in close orbit. It was the only logical explanation why hydrogen, oxygen and sulphur were present in the disc.

An artist’s animation shows what happens when the Sun runs out of energy

But the planet wouldn’t have always been that close to the star. The star would have likely swelled and swallowed up any inner planets that might have existed. The remaining planet was likely knocked into a closer orbit by another planet, Gansicke said. That second planet might even still be in orbit.

Eventually, the white dwarf will cool and much less of the atmosphere will be stripped from the Neptune-like planet.

Eve Lee, an assistant professor in McGill University’s physics department, is intrigued by the findings.

“It tells us about the future possibility of how our solar system will look,” she said.

It also sheds light on different stellar systems and their possible planets.

“We know stars evolve and they come in many different varieties,” Lee said. “It is interesting to look at what is the evolution of the planet in tandem with the evolution of the star.”

And there are likely more discoveries to come from this distant stellar system.

Gansicke said the team has been awarded time with the Hubble Space Telescope. He said it would be interesting to see if the planet produces a comet-like tail, with gases escaping into space as it orbits the star.

They also hope to use observations from the Gaia spacecraft, which has identified 260,000 white dwarfs that could potentially reveal similar systems.

Lee says the findings provide new direction for exoplanet research.

“It’s not just about finding aliens … and not just about finding small planets around small stars,” she said. “We need to look more broadly.”

Space Weather News for Dec.  2, 2019
https://spaceweather.com
https://www.spaceweatheralerts.com

RARE STRATOSPHERIC CLOUDS: Around the Arctic Circle, sky watchers are reporting rare clouds nearly as colorful as the Northern Lights. Floating through the stratosphere, where clouds do not belong, their icy forms are visible even after sunset. These clouds can only form when the Arctic stratosphere is exceedingly cold. Visit today’s edition of Spaceweather.com for photos and more information.

 

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12 000StarLink satellites by mid 2020s, &  Oneweb has plans to launch  600 by 2021                                                                              

Enjoy the nightsky while we still can….  CPL

For all of his supporters, there are still many others out there with a bone to pick with Elon Musk. And because he has his hands in a diverse array of businesses, it’s anybody’s guess who will wind up with the famous entrepreneur in their critical crosshairs.

As Buzzfeed News reports, this time its astronomers – and they’re voicing their concerns over Elon Musk’s SpaceX firm and its Starlink program. Starlink was initially developed as a way to improve global internet access by clustering groups of smaller satellites closer to the earth instead of relying on fewer, larger ones further out. The $10 billion project intends to culminate in a network of some 12,000 satellites by the mid-2020s.

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The International Astronomical Union, likewise, expressed concern about the impending satellite mania this past June, saying a dark, radio-quiet sky is “not only essential to advancing our understanding of the Universe of which we are a part, but also as a resource for all humanity and for the protection of nocturnal wildlife.” From a practical standpoint, the organization says the light reflecting off the satellites damages observatory telescopes because they have such sensitive optics.

Other agencies, including the U.S. National Radio Astronomy Observatory, say they’ve been working with SpaceX “to jointly analyze and minimize any potential impacts from their proposed Starlink system,” though Buzzfeed points out that astronomers, in general, have little recourse in these cases, because the programs get the stamp of approval from federal agencies.

And there’s more to come, it appears: SpaceX has a competitor, OneWeb, who launched its first batch of satellites earlier this year and has plans to have 600 satellites in orbit by 2021.

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The muck that’s been accumulating at the bottom of this lake for 20,000 years is like a climate time capsule.

What kicked off the Earth’s rapid cooling 12,800 years ago?

In the space of just a couple of years, average temperatures abruptly dropped, resulting in temperatures as much as 14 degrees Fahrenheit cooler in some regions of the Northern Hemisphere. If a drop like that happened today, it would mean the average temperature of Miami Beach would quickly change to that of current Montreal, Canada. Layers of ice in Greenland show that this cool period in the Northern Hemisphere lasted about 1,400 years.

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