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The artist’s impression of a green planet revolving around a stellar body known as the white dwarf. | Credit: Robert Lea (created with Kanfa)
White dwarves may be great bodies, but this does not mean that everything around them should be without life.
This is the conclusion of the Florida Institute of Technology Institute such as Dunn White, which is particularly fascinated by these stellar remains. To date, scientists generally believed that the planets revolve around them White dwarfs It will be not suitable for life because the decrease in the dynamic temperature of its dead star makes its atmosphere very unstable.
as James Web telescope for space (Jwst) is increasingly achieving White dwarf systemsHowever, Whyte and her colleagues developed a model capable of evaluation if two potential main processes of orbits can occur around a moderate white dwarf enough to allow liquid water. This area is referred to around the stars in the name of the area suitable for housing or Goldilocks areaBecause it is not very hot or very cold, just like the bear porridge in the famous story.
The team found that the white dwarves could nourish the two operations at the same time, and it is made Earth -like planets Possible about white dwarves.
This discovery can help expand the focus of our search for life elsewhere in the universe, indicating that the systems previously removed must be reconsidered.
Related to: Searching for a strange life
Expand the borders of Goldilocks
It is usually easy to determine the areas suitable for housing around the stars of stellar bodies such as the sun and others Main sequence stars, Which tends to have somewhat stable temperatures over long periods of time. This is not the case with white dwarves, which form when you love stars Sun Fuel ran out of nuclear fusion, receiving its outer layers with the collapse of the cores and the formation of the stereotypes.
Since these late stereotypes no longer have a source of fuel, they gradually spend the rest of their presence in cooling, and this makes temperatures and energy outputs inconsistent.
As a result, Goldilocks are constantly narrowing the white dwarves, with distance There can be liquid water without freezing On tropical planets, they are constantly shrinking around these dead stars.
“Goldilocks” regions of TRAPIST-1 and our solar system. | Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech
White and his colleagues wanted to know whether a planet revolves around a white dwarf in a residential area that could maintain operations that seem to be a lifelong for seven billion years, the expansion that scientists estimated is the maximum life of a land -like planet in this region around the star.
The team model focused on two processes: Optical representationThe plants use on the ground to convert sunlight, water and carbon dioxide into sugars, and pushing UV rays (UV). Generation. This is the idea that UV rays can help life – one of the theories that have been proposed to explain life roots on Earth.
The model simulated the Earth -like planet revolving around a white dwarf, allowing the team to measure the amount of energy that the world received as its dead star and the area suitable for housing that he sat in its shrinkage.
Surprisingly, this has revealed that over seven billion years, the planet has received a sufficient energy to maintain both optical representation and the formation of UV -based weights.
“This is not really common about most of the stars,” White He said in a statement. “Something like the sun, of course, can save enough energy, however Brown dwarfs and Red dwarfs Smaller than the sun does not really provide energy in UV rays and light -acting range. “
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– Life after stars? How life can arise on the planets that revolve around the white dwarves
These results can help scientists define systems that must be focused on telescope Strange life. In particular, the results indicate that white dwarf systems may deserve the appearance as this research continues.
White said: “We give them confidence that these stars systems deserve to be investing in time and money,” said White.
The team’s results were published in December 2024 Astronomical physical magazine messages.
