The same fate may await our planet. Now, scientists have been able to see with their own eyes what happens to the planet after the star expands. Turns into a red giant, the star absorbs the planets near it. Those who survive can be swallowed by white dwarfs. Many stars become sup

The same fate may await our planet. Now, scientists have been able to see with their own eyes what happens to the planet after the star expands.

becomes a red giant, and this star absorbs the planets near it. Those who survive can be swallowed by white dwarf .

Many stars become supernova at the end of their lives, but this is far from the only way out. When a star runs out of fuel and becomes unstable, it expands to a huge size and then leaves its shell while its core collapses into a small, super dense white dwarf.

When the sun becomes such a red giant , it will increase to the orbit of Mars and may destroy and destroy planets close enough. Scientists have seen white dwarfs that own planets - meaning they can survive this collapse. But more and more scientists have discovered that many exoplanet are being swallowed by white dwarfs.

A planet swallowed by stars

Now astronomers have discovered the oldest known example of this phenomenon: an exoplanet was swallowed by a white dwarf formed 10.2 billion years ago. The white dwarf is about 90 light years from Earth, very small and dull, with an unusual red color, brighter than any other star of its kind. The second white dwarf, an abnormal blue dwarf, was formed 9 billion years ago. The team found that both stars were constantly contaminated by falling planetary fragments.

However, while the red star, known as WD J2147-4035, is the oldest contaminated white dwarf ever found, the blue star, known as WD J1922+0233, is probably more interesting: elements found in its atmosphere suggest that the star is swallowing a planet that is very similar to Earth.

In the case of WD J2147-4035, astronomers determined that its pollution might be caused by remnants of a planetary system that orbited stars before death, survived the pain of stars, and is now slowly, for billions of years, falling into stars. Since the star evolved into a white dwarf more than 10 billion years ago, this makes it the oldest known planetary system in Milky Way (although it has decayed and disappeared).

Meanwhile, the fragments of WD J1922 + 0233 have components similar to the Earth's continental crust, indicating that -type earth planet orbits a sun-like star that lived and died billions of years before the formation of the solar system.