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in our solar system when the sun dies in about 5 billion years, according to new research.
This unusual duo was discovered 6,500 light-years away, near the center of our Milky
Way galaxy. The pairing is unexpected because this gas giant exoplanet with a mass
similar to Jupiter's is orbiting a white dwarf.
A white dwarf is what remains after a sun-like star swells up to a red giant during the
star's evolution. Red giants burn through their hydrogen fuel and expand, consuming
any planets near their path. After the star loses its atmosphere, all that remains is the
collapsed core -- the white dwarf. This remnant, usually about the size of Earth,
continues to cool for billions of years.
This artist's rendering depicts Jupiter orbiting our sun once it becomes a white dwarf. Artist
rendering of Jupiter and its white dwarf host.
The high-resolution near-infrared images allowed the researchers to rule out the possibility
that what the exoplanet is orbiting is a normal star or another type of evolved star.
"We have also been able to rule out the possibility of a neutron star or a black hole host.
This means that the planet is orbiting a dead star, a white dwarf," said study coauthor Jean-
Philippe Beaulieu, Warren chair of Astrophysics at the University of Tasmania and director
of research for the French National Centre for Scientific Research's Institut d'Astrophysique
de Paris, in a statement. "It offers a glimpse into what our solar system will look like after the
disappearance of the Earth, wiped out in the cataclysmic demise of our Sun."
NASA names Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope in honor of agency's first chief
astronomer
"There should also be smaller mass planets orbiting white dwarfs," Bennett wrote in an
email. "Our microlensing surveys detect similar numbers of Jupiters and Neptunes, but we
are more sensitive to Jupiters. So, we've found that Neptune mass planets are about 10
times more common than Jupiters in these wider orbits that will survive the end stages of
stellar evolution. We expect that we will find planets of a range of masses orbiting white
dwarfs."
"We do expect to find planets with a range of masses orbiting white dwarfs, but smaller
rocky planets in close orbits are more likely to have been ripped apart during the red giant
phase of its host star's evolution," Blackman added.
The researchers will continue the search for exoplanet survivors orbiting dead stars in the
future. The Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, slated to launch in 2026, "will conduct a
much more sensitive microlensing survey that should find many more planets orbiting white
dwarfs," Bennett said.
The telescope will directly image giant planets and survey the planets orbiting white dwarfs
across our galaxy, providing scientists with a better ratio of how many are destroyed by
stellar evolution and how many survive.