Ölü bir yıldızın çevresindeki çift enkaz halkası, gezegen sistemlerinin nasıl sona erdiğine dair ipucu veriyor

Astronomers working with the Very Large Telescope of the European Southern Observatory have identified an unusual debris disc around J1328−1450, a white dwarf, the dense remnant left when a Sun-like star exhausts its fuel. As such stars age, they swell and throw off their outer layers, swallowing nearby planets; rocky survivors may then fragment into a disc. Earlier discs around white dwarfs showed a single flat ring, but this one consists of two concentric rings with a clear gap between them. According to the team, two surviving bodies on separate orbits probably keep this structure in place: an inner one a few kilometres across and an outer one that might rival Pluto or even the Moon in size. Calcium, oxygen, magnesium and iron point to rocky material, while the inner ring is rich in magnesium gas, which the outer one largely lacks. The study, in Nature Astronomy, hints at a possible fate for our own Solar System.