{"id":305,"date":"2022-03-24T10:59:31","date_gmt":"2022-03-24T14:59:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/buwd\/?p=305"},"modified":"2024-12-20T16:23:45","modified_gmt":"2024-12-20T21:23:45","slug":"planetary-bodies-observed-for-first-time-in-habitable-zone-of-dead-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/buwd\/2022\/03\/24\/planetary-bodies-observed-for-first-time-in-habitable-zone-of-dead-star\/","title":{"rendered":"Planetary bodies observed for first time in habitable zone of dead star"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure style=\"width: 646px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"\/buwd\/files\/2022\/03\/WDhz-636x398.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"636\" height=\"398\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-307\" srcset=\"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/buwd\/files\/2022\/03\/WDhz-636x398.jpg 636w, https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/buwd\/files\/2022\/03\/WDhz.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 636px) 100vw, 636px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">An artist&#8217;s impression of the white dwarf star WD1054-226 orbited by clouds of planetary debris and a possible major planet in the habitable zone. (credit <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ucl.ac.uk\/news\/2022\/feb\/planetary-bodies-observed-first-time-habitable-zone-dead-star\">Mark A. Garlick<\/a> \/ <a href=\"http:\/\/www.markgarlick.com\/\">markgarlick.com<\/a>).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In February 2022, a manuscript led by Jay Farihi from University College London and including members of the BUWD group (<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/ui.adsabs.harvard.edu\/abs\/2022MNRAS.511.1647F\/abstract\">Farihi, Hermes, Marsh, et al. 2022<\/a><\/strong>) announced the discovery of a remarkable white dwarf that hosts the first planetary debris found in the habitable zone of a retired solar system. The white dwarf, WD1054-226, started out its life like the Sun, but has since evolved through its giant phase and is now a retired white dwarf star. The debris orbits the white dwarf every 25 hours, and features persistent structures in the transit light curve that are most simply explained by a more massive unseen object, in the same way that <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Shepherd_moon\">structures in the rings of Saturn are caused by orbital resonances with moons and moonlets<\/a>. The discovery was covered by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/science-environment-60325010\">BBC News<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newscientist.com\/article\/2307902-first-hints-of-a-planet-orbiting-in-a-white-dwarfs-habitable-zone\/\">NewScientist<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/alien-life-could-survive-stellar-graveyard-around-dead-stars-white-dwarf-1678961\">Newsweek<\/a>, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.space.com\/possible-planet-habitable-zone-white-dwarf\">Space.com<\/a>, and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.iflscience.com\/space\/debris-ring-hints-at-first-planet-found-in-a-white-dwarfs-habitable-zone\/\">IFLScience<\/a>. A nice <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/coreyspowell\/status\/1492653000774586379\">thread on Twitter by Corey S. Powell<\/a> summarizes some of the most interesting figures from the <a href=\"https:\/\/ui.adsabs.harvard.edu\/abs\/2022MNRAS.511.1647F\/abstract\">manuscript, published in MNRAS<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In February 2022, a manuscript led by Jay Farihi from University College London and including members of the BUWD group (Farihi, Hermes, Marsh, et al. 2022) announced the discovery of a remarkable white dwarf that hosts the first planetary debris found in the habitable zone of a retired solar system. The white dwarf, WD1054-226, started [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15801,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/buwd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/buwd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/buwd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/buwd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15801"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/buwd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/buwd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":472,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/buwd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305\/revisions\/472"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/buwd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/buwd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sites.bu.edu\/buwd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}