A Scientist Wants To Know The Fate Of Planets Orbiting Dead Stars

Dead Star

The planets orbiting dead stars still sometimes survive. They can orbit their former star’s remaining things or freely float through the galaxy.

These planets normally are obscured by the giant dust cloud produced when their star dies. However, a Rochester Institute of Technology’s astrophysicist named Jason Nordhaus. funded by NASA, wants to find out the fate of these mysterious planets after the death of their stars.

Planets are obscured due to the giant dust cloud produced when their star die

Lonely Planet

In a press release of the university, to carefully look through these giant clouds and see the hidden planets and stars, the astrophysicist invented software tools with the ability to pinpoint their locations. With this study, he expects to be able to forecast which planets will be removed after their stars die in the future and which ones will still survive.

Nordhaus said in the release:

The study aims to forecast which planets will be removed after their stars die in the future and which ones will still survive

Rare Puppis

It is known that the astrophysicist has already found a hidden planet at least, which is a planet orbiting L2 Puppis dying star previously undiscovered. That forecast was confirmed by the data collected from the Chile-based powerful telescope network, the Atacama Large Millimeter Array later.

Commenting on his work, Nordhaus said the study on the planets orbiting the dead stars helps them understand the solar system’s fate, other star systems’ fates in the galaxy as well as improve their knowledge about the interaction between planets and stars.