#Scientists spot giant planet orbiting dead white dwarf star

Scientists have discovered a Jupiter-size planet which, for the first time ever recorded, is orbiting a significantly smaller, dim white dwarf star. The planet rapidly orbiting the dwarf — located about 80 light-years away in the northern constellation Draco — has been given the less-catchy name of WD 1856+534.

An international team of astronomers used an assortment of ground- and space-based telescopes to make the discovery, which is proof that intact planets can closely orbit white dwarfs. (A white dwarf star is a star which has run out of nuclear fuel. They are known for being about the size of Earth — which means small, in context — but incredibly dense, with only black holes and neutron stars being denser.)

“We’ve never seen evidence before of a planet coming in so close to a white dwarf and surviving. It’s a pleasant surprise,” said lead author Andrew Vanderburg in a press release about the findings, which were published Sept. 16 in the journal Nature.

Researchers located the unique planetary relationship by scanning data for thousands of white dwarf systems. They struck gold when they noticed that the dwarf in question had its brightness dimmed by roughly half about every one and a half days, which they correctly interpreted as something large orbiting in front of it.

A nearby star’s glare proved an obstacle in getting a closer look, but with the help of their telescopes and a few amateur astronomers, the scientists were able to get the data they needed.

“Once the glare was under control, in one night, they got much nicer and much cleaner data than we got with a month of observations from space,” said Vanderburg.

The research not only confirmed that this planetary relationship can exist, but researchers are also hopeful the relationship is one which may be habitable for life.

“I think the most exciting part of this work is what it means for both habitability in general — can there be hospitable regions in these dead solar systems — and also our ability to find evidence of that habitability,” Vanderburg said.