Astronomers Say There Could Be a Way a Planet Could Survive the Death of Its Host Star

Amaze Lab

Our Sun is expected to start dying in a few billion years, so not immediately concerning to anyone living today, but for the future of humanity it might be an issue. As a star goes into its death throes, it will eventually become a red giant and expand out into its system, gobbling up the planets in close proximity. So how could a planet survive that?

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00:00 Our sun is expected to start dying in a few billion years, so not immediately concerning

00:07 to anyone living today.

00:08 But for the future of humanity, it might be an issue.

00:11 As a star like ours goes into its death throes, it will eventually become a red giant and

00:15 expand out into its system, gobbling up the planets in close proximity.

00:19 But recently, astronomers discovered a Jupiter-sized planet orbiting a white dwarf, or a planet-sized

00:25 star that has already gone through the red giant phase and no longer has a fusion reaction

00:29 as its energy source.

00:30 Meaning, under just the right circumstances, a star like our sun could still support life

00:34 even after it's technically dead.

00:36 White dwarfs, which are around the size of Earth, aren't just small and dense.

00:39 They're also quite stable and stick around for a long time.

00:42 Meaning, despite their Goldilocks zone being much smaller, they still have an area around

00:46 them in which they could support life.

00:48 So far, astronomers have only discovered a Jupiter-sized planet still intact orbiting

00:52 a white dwarf star.

00:53 And experts say that planets of that size are likely quite rare.

00:56 Meaning that could be one of the reasons they survived the white dwarf phase in the first

00:59 place.

01:00 With the researchers adding, this is actually a fairly easy hypothesis to test, since we

01:04 already know where to look.

01:06 [music]

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