For the first time ever, the image of an asteroid being torn apart by a dead star and becoming a glowing debris ring has been captured, according to a press release from the University of Warwick in England. The gravity of the dead star ripped apart the asteroids that made their way too close to it, and in combination with the gas created by the collisions within the ring, a dark red glow was emitted.
The researchers who captured the image were in the midst of an investigation of planetary system remnants around white dwarf stars, in this case SDSS1228+1040, and published the study in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
"The diameter of the gap inside of the debris ring is 700,000 kilometres, approximately half the size of the Sun and the same space could fit both Saturn and its rings, which are only around 270,000 km across," said Christopher Manser of the University of Warwick's astrophysics group. "At the same time, the white dwarf is seven times smaller than Saturn but weighs 2500 times more."
Observing the death of stars such as SDSS1228+1040 can help researchers gain more insight into what will happen to our solar system in the future when the sun dies out.
"Over the past decade, we have learned that remnants of planetary systems around white dwarfs are ubiquitous, and over thirty debris disks have been found by now," said Manser. "While most of them are in a stable state, just like Saturn's rings, a handful are seen to change, and it is those systems that can tell us something about how these rings are formed."
