![]() ![]() So not only does the planet WD 1145+017 b live with a star that’s searing hot, the planet orbits at only 0.005 AU - around 1/200 the distance from the Sun to the Earth, and only around twice the distance from the Earth to the Moon. WD 1145+017 in fact burns three times hotter than the surface of the Sun. They’re still just as hot as their stars’ interiors once were, taking billions of years to cool off to the temperature of the surrounding deep space. When a star that’s too small to end in a supernova doesn’t have enough material to keep burning, it will throw off its outer layers and leave behind an Earth-sized remnant core: a white dwarf.īut just because white dwarfs are stars in old-age care doesn’t mean they instantly freeze. In fact, in several billion years, Earth’s own Sun will become a white dwarf. When it was discovered, it was the first exoplanet to be found around a white dwarf - the end stage of most stars. WD 1145+017 b - so named for being the second object (hence the “b”) in the system of the creatively named star WD 1145+017 - is one of those. Still other exoplanets are rapidly disintegrating, melting down and eroding away in the dying light of what was once a star. Yet others are utterly alien worlds, with crusts of diamond or oceans hundreds of miles deep. Others are majestic, truly massive gas giants, so colossal they make Jupiter look like a mere moon in comparison. Some are Earth-like, perfectly placed around their parent stars to have water - and perhaps even what we’d recognize as life. Since the 1990s, astronomers have discovered over 4,000 exoplanets. ![]() ![]() Habitability for humans: You, too, will boil Scienceline’s Guide to the Exoplanets: The Infernal Shadow Rahul Rao ![]()
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