The observatory captured the 'zombie' eating the planet: is this the future of Earth?

For the first time, scientists have captured unequivocal evidence of a white dwarf star ripping and swallowing parts of its own planet.

Using data from the Chandra X-ray Observatory, a team of scientists has identified the phenomenon of a planet's material slowly moving into the atmosphere of a white dwarf, its dead parent star. . It is the white dwarf G 29-38, located 57 light-years away, which died 600 million years ago, according to Science Alert.

The white dwarf is ripping and swallowing the planet

A white dwarf is a "zombie" - a "zombie" - of the universe. It is the collapsed core of a dead star, which has run out of fuel, but not necessarily stopped working.

The white dwarf has been observed before, acting like a vampire in binary systems, sucking up the companion star's matter, but this is the first time seeing it cannibalize a planet that itself was born while "alive".

According to astrophysicist Tim Cunningham from the University of Warwick (UK), they have traced back the accretion model of the white dwarf to see what else has fallen into the original body, which could be the object. substances from planets, moons or asteroids.

Thanks to Chandra, the scientists isolated G 29-38 from other surrounding X-ray sources and found that the X-ray signal was produced by accretion, whose origin is the ill-fated planet. revolve around it.

In recent years astronomers have determined that when stars die, their planets are still alive, and even white dwarfs continue to give birth to second generations.

Our sun within the next 5 billion years may become a similar "zombie". Many scenarios are posed for Earth: being swallowed up right from the previous red giant stage; persisted but cooled down and became extinct; Or maybe the ill-fated planet near G 29-38.