(NLDO) - The planet about 4,000 light years away from us could be an image of Earth 5 billion years from now.
A research team led by Dr. Jessica Lu from the University of California at Berkeley (USA) has discovered a special system including an Earth-like planet orbiting a cosmic "zombie".
An Earth-like planet in the foreground with its parent star being a deadly white dwarf - Illustration AI: ANH THU
According to Sci-News, the entire cluster of objects studied is collectively named KMT-2020-BLG-0414.
The cluster contains a white dwarf star located 4,000 light years away. Orbiting this star is an Earth-like planet and a brown dwarf.
In addition, the cluster also includes a bright star located 25,000 light years away from us.
In 2020, a white dwarf system accidentally passed in front of a bright star as seen from Earth. The gravitational field of the nearby star system magnified the distant star, causing them to flare together in data from the Korean Microlensing Telescope Network.
Now, scientists have analyzed that extraordinary data in detail and found the aforementioned Earth-like planet. More precisely, it is a post-apocalyptic Earth, according to research just published in the scientific journal Nature Astronomy.
With a mass of about 1.9 times that of Earth, it is still classified as an Earth-mass planet. It also orbits its parent star at a distance of about 2.1 AU. AU is an astronomical unit, equivalent to the distance between the Sun and Earth.
Considering the factors, the distant planet may have once had an environment similar to our own . However, the most terrifying thing is that it is orbiting a white dwarf star.
White dwarfs are the “zombies” of the universe. Our Sun will also turn into a white dwarf when it runs out of energy in 5 billion years. But in the middle of that “dying” phase, it will explode into a red giant star much larger than its current size.
So the Earth-like planet went through a terrible phase when its parent star exploded into a red giant.
Theoretically, red giants can engulf planets that are close to them, within a range of about 1-3 AU depending on how violently the star flares.
That's why astronomers predict that Earth, along with Mercury and Venus, will be swallowed up in the next 5 billion years, while the fate of Mars is "unlucky".
It’s possible that planets survived the explosion, like this one 4,000 light years away. But the red giant phase of the parent star almost certainly wiped out any life there.
Source: https://nld.com.vn/lo-dien-hanh-tinh-giong-trai-dat-nhung-chua-dieu-khung-khiep-196240927100652353.htm
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