Cosmic 'Death Star' Destroying A Planet
Thursday, October 22, 2015 - 01:50
in Astronomy & Space
The Death Star of the movie Star Wars may be fictional, but planetary destruction is real. Astronomers announced today that they have spotted a large, rocky object disintegrating in its death spiral around a distant white dwarf star. The discovery also confirms a long-standing theory behind the source of white dwarf "pollution" by metals. "This is something no human has seen before," says lead author Andrew Vanderburg of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA). "We're watching a solar system get destroyed." read more