The Sun will eventually die. This will occur when it exhausts the hydrogen fuel in its core and can no longer generate energy through nuclear fusion. While this stage is often imagined as the final chapter for the solar system, it could instead mark the beginning of a new evolutionary phase for the objects that remain within it.
When stars similar to the Sun die, they expand dramatically during what is known as the Red Giant phase. Their radius increases, their surface becomes cooler and redder, and their weakened gravity can no longer hold on to the outer layers. As much as half of the star’s mass can escape into space, leaving behind a dense stellar remnant called a white dwarf.
I am a professor of astronomy at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In 2020, my colleagues and I discovered the first intact planet orbiting around a white dwarf. Since then, I’ve been fascinated by the prospect of life on planets around these, tiny, dense white dwarfs.
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