Researchers find indications of a potential exoplanet in a white dwarf's narrow habitable zone for the first time.
When you think of searching for habitable planets, you probably think about looking for Earth-like planets orbiting sun-like stars. But the range of possibly habitable planets is larger than that, and astronomers recently discovered indications of a planet in the habitable zone of a dead star.
The researchers observed the white dwarf WD1054–226 using the European Southern Observatory’s New Technology Telescope in Chile, as well as gathering extra data using NASA’s Transition Exoplanet Survey Satellite . They found a ring of planetary debris around the white dwarf, including moon-sized structures whose movements suggest the presence of a nearby planet. They estimate the planet would be a comparable size to Earth and orbit very close to the white dwarf, at just 1.
“An exciting possibility is that these bodies are kept in such an evenly-spaced orbital pattern because of the gravitational influence of a nearby major planet. Without this influence, friction and collisions would cause the structures to disperse, losing the precise regularity that is observed. A precedent for this ‘shepherding’ is the way the gravitational pull of moons around Neptune and Saturn help to create stable ring structures orbiting these planets.
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