Rising from the ashes: Scientists have found a phoenix planet

A phoenix planet, formed from the remnants of a dying star, has been found around a white dwarf star for the first time. The second-generation planet could be an indicator of the future of our solar system.

Cosmic death

The unnamed exoplanet was discovered circling the white dwarf HS 0209+0832, according to a study published in the journal Nature Astronomy. White dwarfs are created when stars “exhaust the hydrogen in their cores needed to fuel nuclear fusion and create helium,” said Space.com (a sister site of The Week). HS 0209+0832’s atmosphere had an “unusual chemical signature” with “oddly heavy elements including zinc, copper and most notably, niobium,” which are “created during the death of a star,” said a news release about the study.

This signature is likely the white dwarf “feeding off a newly formed, second-generation giant planet” that “condensed out of a new disc of material formed during the star’s death,” said the release. Scientists also suspect that the atmosphere of the phoenix planet is “being stripped by the white dwarf’s stellar winds, causing the rare elements to fall back onto the zombie star,” said Live Science (also a sister site of The Week).

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Rebirth

Many more phoenix planets around white dwarfs may exist. “Over 95% of stars in the Milky Way will evolve to become a white dwarf,” including our sun, said lead study author Jamie Williams to Reuters. In the future, our own solar system could “host a second-generation planet formed from the ashes of our sun,” said the release.

While this phoenix planet is a gas planet, others could be rocky or even hold life. “White dwarfs cool predictably over time ⁠and as they get cooler, their cooling slows,” Williams said. “If a second-generation rocky planet formed close enough to the white dwarf then it could remain in the habitable zone for billions of years.”