Astronomers see signs of planets around dying stars
Second-generation planets could be born from binary systems that are aging.
A star similar to the Sun enters its death phase when it exhausts all of its helium fuel. It swells up to a giant red star, swallowing the planets in its core, and starts burning leftover hydrogen into helium. These helium ashes are periodically re-ignited, causing the star’s outer layers to be thrown into space and it to burn brightly again.
The asymptotic branch is the name of this volatile phase in stellar life. It would appear that the planet-forming process is in a bad environment with so many things happening. Over the last couple of decades, astronomers began to suspect that, under certain circumstances, this could result in a disk of material around the star and give rise to a secondary generation of planets.
An analysis published in Astronomy & Astrophysics on February 1 gives some of first observations that dying stars could be giving rise to new planets. Around 10 percent of post-AGB star systems they studied were surrounded by gas and dust disks with gaps and cavities, which is a sign that planets may be present or forming.
Source:
https://astronomy.com:443/news/2022/02/planets-could-form-around-dying-stars
