For the first time, astronomers have observed something like a Pluto colliding with a white dwarf, the shriveled corpse of a medium-size star.
The white dwarf, dubbed WD 1647+375, is about 260 light-years away from Earth in space. Despite its distance, this dead star’s realm might have had striking similarities to our own solar system, including something akin to a Kuiper Belt, a disk past Neptune of comets and icy dwarf planets, according to new research.
NASA‘s Hubble Space Telescope made the discovery by playing the part of a crime scene detective. By studying the material falling onto the white dwarf, scientists could reconstruct what kinds of planets and other cosmic objects — their ingredients, sizes, and compositions — probably orbited the star.
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