Astronomers use ‘little hurricanes’ to weigh and date planets around young stars

The protoplanetary disc surrounding the young star HL Tauri. These new ALMA observations reveal substructures within the disc that have never been seen before and even show the possible positions of planets forming in the dark patches within the system. 
Image Credit: ALMA (ESO/NAOJ/NRAO)

Researchers from the University of Cambridge and the Institute for Advanced Study have developed a technique, which uses observations of these ‘hurricanes’ by the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) to place some limits on the mass and age of planets in a young star system.

Pancake-like clouds of gases, dust and ice surrounding young stars – known as protoplanetary discs - are where the process of planet formation begins. Through a process known as core accretion, gravity causes particles in the disc to stick to each other, eventually forming larger solid bodies such as asteroids or planets. As young planets form, they start to carve gaps in the protoplanetary disc, like grooves on a vinyl record.

Even a relatively small planet – as small as one-tenth the mass of Jupiter according to some recent calculations – may be capable of creating such gaps. As these ‘super-Neptune’ planets can orbit their star at a distance greater than Pluto orbits the Sun, traditional methods of exoplanet detection cannot be used.

In addition to the grooves, observations from ALMA have shown other distinct structures in protoplanetary discs, such as banana- or peanut-shaped arcs and clumps. It had been thought that at least some of these structures were also driven by planets.

James Webb Telescope Reveals Milky Way-like Galaxies in Young Universe

The power of JWST to map galaxies at high resolution and at longer infrared wavelengths than Hubble allows it look through dust and unveil the underlying structure and mass of distant galaxies. This can be seen in these two images of the galaxy EGS23205, seen as it was about 11 billion years ago. In the HST image (left, taken in the near-infrared filter), the galaxy is little more than a disk-shaped smudge obscured by dust and impacted by the glare of young stars, but in the corresponding JWST mid-infrared image (taken this past summer), it’s a beautiful spiral galaxy with a clear stellar bar.
Image Credit: NASA/CEERS/University of Texas at Austin

New images from NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) reveal for the first-time galaxies with stellar bars — elongated features of stars stretching from the centers of galaxies into their outer disks — at a time when the universe was a mere 25% of its present age. The finding of so-called barred galaxies, similar to our Milky Way, this early in the universe will require astrophysicists to refine their theories of galaxy evolution.

Prior to JWST, images from the Hubble Space Telescope had never detected bars at such young epochs. In a Hubble image, one galaxy, EGS-23205, is little more than a disk-shaped smudge, but in the corresponding JWST image taken this past summer, it’s a beautiful spiral galaxy with a clear stellar bar.

“I took one look at these data, and I said, ‘We are dropping everything else!’” said Shardha Jogee, professor of astronomy at The University of Texas at Austin. “The bars hardly visible in Hubble data just popped out in the JWST image, showing the tremendous power of JWST to see the underlying structure in galaxies,” she said, describing data from the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science Survey (CEERS), led by UT Austin professor, Steven Finkelstein.

Russian Scientists Learned to Create Analogues of Space Ice

Astronomers from Ural Federal University have grown ice in a vacuum installation.
Photo Credit: Aldebaran S

Employees of the Ural Federal University's Youth Research Laboratory of Astrochemical Research grew the first samples of interstellar ice analogs and for the first time obtained test infrared spectra of these ices (the quality of the spectra is not inferior to those obtained in foreign laboratories). Obtaining analogues of interstellar ice in the laboratories is important because it will help to analyze data from telescopes, in particular James Webb (JWST), and to determine the chemical composition of interstellar ice and its structure in space.

"Until a year ago, experiments to obtain spectra of interstellar ice analogs were conducted only abroad. Now we can conduct them in Russia as well. The quality of the obtained spectra is not inferior to those obtained in foreign laboratories. It is also important to note that one of the key elements of our experimental setup, the turbomolecular pump, is made in Russia," Anton Vasyunin, Head of the Scientific Laboratory for Astrochemical Research at UrFU, commented on the results.

Interstellar ice forms in the cold formation regions of stars and planets from atoms and molecules that freeze at low temperatures from gas on the surface of microscopic cosmic dust particles. Studies of interstellar ice are necessary to understand the chemical evolution of the galaxy and to find answers to fundamental questions, in particular about the origin of life in the universe.

Alien Planet Found Spiraling to its Doom around an Aging Star

An artist's concept of the Kepler-1658 system. Kepler-1658b, orbiting with a period of just 3.8 days, was the first exoplanet candidate discovered by Kepler. 
Illustration Credit: Gabriel Perez Diaz/Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias

For the first time, astronomers have spotted an exoplanet whose orbit is decaying around an evolved, or older, host star. The stricken world appears destined to spiral closer and closer to its maturing star until collision and ultimate obliteration.

The discovery offers new insights into the long-winded process of planetary orbital decay by providing the first look at a system at this late stage of evolution. Death-by-star is a fate thought to await many worlds and could be the Earth's ultimate adios billions of years from now as our Sun grows older.

"We've previously detected evidence for exoplanets inspiraling toward their stars, but we have never before seen such a planet around an evolved star," says Shreyas Vissapragada, a 51 Pegasi b Fellow at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian and lead author of a new study describing the results. "Theory predicts that evolved stars are very effective at sapping energy from their planets' orbits, and now we can test those theories with observations."

Samples From Asteroid Ryugu Help Us Learn About Earth's Origins

The elemental composition of the Earth comes from its fiery past, through accretion of various solar system objects. New samples collected by the Hayabusa2 space mission provide insight into the origins of moderately volatile elements such as zinc and copper. Tokyo Tech researchers have linked the material from the Cb-type asteroid, Ryugu, to the elemental composition of the Earth. Their results suggest that Ryugu-type material played a significant role in the genetic heritage of the Earth's elemental composition.

Understanding the origins of Earth's elemental composition offers a glimpse into the history of our planet. One way to learn about this is to investigate the meteorites that would have similar composition with materials that contributed to the accretion of planet Earth in its early development. Meteorites are divided into multiple classes based on their composition. The most primitive and common of these classes includes chondrites, which further includes carbonaceous chondrites (CCs). Of these, Ivuna-type (CI) CCs have an elemental composition that is nearly identical with that of the solar photosphere, which therefore can be used as a key reference for understanding how early solar system processes shaped planets and their building blocks. The Hayabusa2 spacecraft's mission was to collect samples from the Cb-type asteroid (162173), Ryugu. As the elemental composition of returned Ryugu samples is unaffected by further terrestrial processes, the two successful sampling events on Ryugu offer a plethora of unprecedented information.

Astronomers discover clues about stellar ‘glitching’

Stars that experience structural "glitches" during their lifetimes may be more common than first thought.

Astronomers have found a way to peer into the physics of some of the brightest stars in the sky.

Using data from NASA’s Kepler space telescope, an international team of researchers has found new evidence that red giants, dying stars that have exhausted their supply of hydrogen and are in the final stages of stellar evolution, often experience large-scale structural variations, or what are known as “glitches” deep inside their inner core.

The stellar glitches popularized in the media have to do with a star’s rotation, but lead author Mathieu Vrard studies a different kind of defect. The glitches in this study can affect a star’s oscillations, or the frequencies and paths that sound waves travel when passing through a star.

Red clump stars, helium-core burning objects, are often used in astrophysical studies as probes of distance to measure aspects like galaxy density, and to learn more about the physical processes behind stellar chemical evolution. So, it’s vital that scientists understand why these discontinuities happen, said Vrard, a postdoctoral research associate in astronomy at the Ohio State University.

“By analyzing these variations, we can use them to obtain not only the global parameters of the star, but also information on the precise structure of those objects,” he said.

Comet Impacts Could Bring Ingredients for Life to Europa’s Ocean

An artist's concept of a comet or asteroid impact on Jupiter's moon Europa.
Illustration Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

Comet strikes on Jupiter’s moon Europa could help transport critical ingredients for life found on the moon’s surface to its hidden ocean of liquid water — even if the impacts don’t punch completely through the moon’s icy shell.

The discovery comes from a study led by researchers at The University of Texas at Austin, where researchers developed a computer model to observe what happens after a comet or asteroid strikes the ice shell, which is estimated to be tens of kilometers thick.

The model shows that if an impact can make it at least halfway through the moon’s ice shell, the heated meltwater it generates will sink through the rest of the ice, bringing oxidants — a class of chemicals required for life — from the surface to the ocean, where they could help sustain any potential life in the sheltered waters.

The researchers compared the steady sinking of the massive melt chamber to a foundering ship.

Scientists get first-ever sound recording of dust devils on Mars

Roger Wiens, a planetary scientist and Mars rover expert at Purdue University, with a topographical model of Mars and a photo of Curiosity.
Photo Credit: John Underwood / Purdue University

When the rover Perseverance landed on Mars, it was equipped with the first working microphone on the planet’s surface. Scientists have used it to make the first-ever audio recording of an extraterrestrial whirlwind.

The study was published in Nature Communications by planetary scientist Naomi Murdoch and a team of researchers at the National Higher French Institute of Aeronautics and Space and NASA. Roger Wiens, professor of earth, atmospheric and planetary sciences in Purdue University’s College of Science, leads the instrument team that made the discovery. He is the principal investigator of Perseverance’s SuperCam, a suite of tools that comprise the rover’s “head” that includes advanced remote-sensing instruments with a wide range of spectrometers, cameras and the microphone.

“We can learn a lot more using sound than we can with some of the other tools,” Wiens said. “They take readings at regular intervals. The microphone lets us sample, not quite at the speed of sound, but nearly 100,000 times a second. It helps us get a stronger sense of what Mars is like.”

UH lab produces building blocks to DNA and RNA in deep space

Conceptualization of the role of methanediamine in the galactic cosmic ray mediated synthesis of DNA and RNA bases in deep space.
Illustration Credit: University of Hawaiʻi

The synthetic production of a critical building block called methanediamine for the first time by researchers in University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa’s Department of Chemistry could lead to key insights into the origins of life. The researchers have discovered a method to produce it in a lab under conditions that mimic icy interstellar nanoparticles in cold molecular clouds in space.

Nitrogen is the most abundant element in Earth’s atmosphere. It is also incorporated into nearly one-third of some 300 molecules identified in the interstellar medium, which is the material that exists in the space between the stars in a galaxy.

Most nitrogen-containing molecules in deep space carry exclusively the nitrile moiety (organic compound that has a carbon, nitrogen functional group), while amines (a member of a family of nitrogen-containing organic compounds that is derived from ammonia) and imines (compounds containing a carbon-nitrogen double bond) are relatively rare. According to experts, an understanding of the origin of these less common molecule parts in deep space is central to the hypothesis for the origin of life because all nucleobases (nitrogen-containing compounds) found in contemporary RNA and DNA contain amines and imines.

SwRI Study Describes First Ultraviolet Imaging of Sun's Middle Corona

Video Credit: Courtesy of SwRI/NOAA A

A team of researchers from Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), NASA and the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research (MPS) have discovered web-like plasma structures in the Sun’s middle corona. The researchers describe their innovative new observation method, imaging the middled corona in ultraviolet (UV) wavelength, in a new study published in Nature Astronomy. The findings could lead to a better understanding of the solar wind’s origins and its interactions with the rest of the solar system.

Since 1995, the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has observed the Sun’s corona with the Large Angle and Spectrometric Coronagraph (LASCO) stationed aboard the NASA and European Space Agency Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) spacecraft to monitor space weather that could affect the Earth. But LASCO has a gap in observations that obscures our view of the middle solar corona, where the solar wind originates.

Cities on asteroids? It could work—in theory

In what they deem a “wildly theoretical” paper, Rochester researchers imagine covering an asteroid in a flexible, mesh bag made of ultralight and high-strength carbon nanofibers as the key to creating human cities in space.
Illustration Credit: University of Rochester | Michael Osadciw

Rochester scientists use physics and engineering principles to show how asteroids could be future viable space habitats.

This past year, Jeff Bezos launched himself into space, while Elon Musk funded a space flight for a non-astronaut crew. Space collaborations between government and private entities, including Musk’s SpaceX and Bezos’s Blue Origin have become increasingly common. But with the recent emergence of the so-called “New Space” movement, aerospace companies are working to develop low-cost access to space for everyone, not only billionaires.

For a future beyond Earth, however, humans need places to accommodate homes, buildings, and other structures for millions of people to live and work.

Right now, space cities exist only in science fiction. But are space cities feasible in reality? And, if so, how?

According to new research from University of Rochester scientists, our future may lie in asteroids.

In what they deem a “wildly theoretical” paper published in the journal Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences, the researchers, including Adam Frank, the Helen F. and Fred H. Gowen Professor of Physics and Astronomy, and Peter Miklavčič, a PhD candidate in mechanical engineering and the paper’s first author, outline a plan for creating large cities on asteroids.

Mysteriously bright flash is a black hole jet pointing straight toward Earth, astronomers say

Caption:Astronomers identified an extremely bright black hole jet, halfway across the universe, pointing straight toward Earth.
Illustration Credit: Dheeraj Pasham, Matteo Lucchini, and Margaret Trippe.

Earlier this year, astronomers were keeping tabs on data from the Zwicky Transient Facility, an all-sky survey based at the Palomar Observatory in California, when they detected an extraordinary flash in a part of the sky where no such light had been observed the night before. From a rough calculation, the flash appeared to give off more light than 1,000 trillion suns.

The team, led by researchers at NASA, Caltech, and elsewhere, posted their discovery to an astronomy newsletter, where the signal drew the attention of astronomers around the world, including scientists at MIT. Over the next few days, multiple telescopes focused on the signal to gather more data across multiple wavelengths in the X-ray, ultraviolet, optical, and radio bands, to see what could possibly produce such an enormous amount of light.

Now, the MIT astronomers along with their collaborators have determined a likely source for the signal. In a study appearing in Nature Astronomy, the scientists report that the signal, named AT 2022cmc, likely comes from a relativistic jet of matter streaking out from a supermassive black hole at close to the speed of light. They believe the jet is the product of a black hole that suddenly began devouring a nearby star, releasing a huge amount of energy in the process.

Most distant detection of a black hole swallowing a star

This artist’s impression illustrates how it might look when a star approaches too close to a black hole, where the star is squeezed by the intense gravitational pull of the black hole. Some of the star’s material gets pulled in and swirls around the black hole forming the disc that can be seen in this image. In rare cases, such as this one, jets of matter and radiation are shot out from the poles of the black hole. In the case of the AT2022cmc event, evidence of the jets was detected by various telescopes including the VLT, which determined this was the most distant example of such an event. 
Illustration Credit: ESO/M.Kornmesser

Earlier this year, the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT) was alerted after an unusual source of visible light had been detected by a survey telescope. The VLT, together with other telescopes, was swiftly repositioned towards the source: a supermassive black hole in a distant galaxy that had devoured a star, expelling the leftovers in a jet. The VLT determined it to be the furthest example of such an event to have ever been observed. Because the jet is pointing almost towards us, this is also the first time it has been discovered with visible light, providing a new way of detecting these extreme events.

Stars that wander too close to a black hole are ripped apart by the incredible tidal forces of the black hole in what is known as a tidal disruption event (TDE). Approximately 1% of these cause jets of plasma and radiation to be ejected from the poles of the rotating black hole. In 1971, the black hole pioneer John Wheeler[1] introduced the concept of jetted-TDEs as “a tube of toothpaste gripped tight about its middle,” causing the system to “squirt matter out of both ends.”

Small asteroids are probably young

Simulation of the SCI impact. a) – c) Snapshots of the simulation at different times. At t = 1200s, the development of the crater is over. d) SCI crater on the asteroid Ryugu. The key characteristics of the observed crater, including the displacement of the boulders, are recreated in the simulation.
Credit: Courtesy of Martin Jutzi

The impact experiment conducted on the asteroid Ryugu by the Japanese Hayabusa2 mission which took place two years ago resulted in an unexpectedly large crater. With the use of simulations, a team led by the University of Bern and the National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR) PlanetS has recently succeeded in gaining new insights from the experiment regarding the formation and development of asteroids. These insights are also important for the DART mission of NASA.

The Hayabusa2 spacecraft was developed in order to study the history of the asteroid Ryugu, and collected samples and returned them to earth for laboratory analysis. The project participants are Dr. Martin Jutzi and Dr. Sabina Raducan, both from the Physical Institute of the University of Bern, Department for Space Research and Planetology (WP), and are members of the National Center of Competence in Research (NCCR) PlanetS. Under their leadership, in a study which has recently been published in Nature Communications, the team has presented new findings on the formation and development of asteroids.

Rock Samples from the Floor of Jezero Crater Show Significant Contact with Water Together with Possible Organic Compounds

A photo of Jezero Crater on Mars. It was taken by instruments on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO), which regularly takes images of potential landing sites for future missions.
Hi-Res Full-Size Image
Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/MSSS/JHU-APL

Analysis of multiple rocks found at the bottom of Jezero Crater on Mars, where the Perseverance rover landed in 2020, reveals significant interaction between the rocks and liquid water, according to a study published in the journal Science. Those rocks also contain evidence consistent with the presence of organic compounds.

The existence of organic compounds (chemical compounds with carbon–hydrogen bonds) is not direct evidence of life, as these compounds can be created through nonbiological processes.

Perseverance previously found organic compounds at Jezero's delta. Deltas are fan-shaped geologic formations created at the intersection of a river and a lake at the edge of the crater. Mars 2020 mission scientists had been particularly interested in the Jezero delta because such formations are created when a river transporting fine-grained sediments enter a deeper, slower-moving body of water. As the river water spreads out, it abruptly slows down, depositing the sediments it is carrying—and in so doing, traps and preserves any microorganisms that may exist in the water.

Astrophysicists Hunt for Second-Closest Supermassive Black Hole

Illustration Credit: Scott Anttila Anttler

Two astrophysicists at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian have suggested a way to observe what could be the second-closest supermassive black hole to Earth: a behemoth 3 million times the mass of the Sun, hosted by the dwarf galaxy Leo I.

The supermassive black hole, labeled Leo I*, was first proposed by an independent team of astronomers in late 2021. The team noticed stars picking up speed as they approached the center of the galaxy — evidence for a black hole — but directly imaging emission from the black hole was not possible.

Now, CfA astrophysicists Fabio Pacucci and Avi Loeb suggest a new way to verify the supermassive black hole's existence; their work is described in a study published today in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

"Black holes are very elusive objects, and sometimes they enjoy playing hide-and-seek with us," says Fabio Pacucci, lead author of the ApJ Letters study. "Rays of light cannot escape their event horizons, but the environment around them can be extremely bright — if enough material falls into their gravitational well. But if a black hole is not accreting mass, instead, it emits no light and becomes impossible to find with our telescopes."

Webb Reveals an Exoplanet Atmosphere as Never Seen Before

The atmospheric composition of the hot gas giant exoplanet WASP-39 b has been revealed by the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. This graphic shows four transmission spectra from three of Webb’s instruments operated in four instrument modes. All are plotted on a common scale extending from 0.5 to 5.5 microns.  A transmission spectrum is made by comparing starlight filtered through a planet’s atmosphere as it moves in front of the star, to the unfiltered starlight detected when the planet is beside the star. Each of the data points (white circles) on these graphs represents the amount of a specific wavelength of light that is blocked by the planet and absorbed by its atmosphere. Wavelengths that are preferentially absorbed by the atmosphere appear as peaks in the transmission spectrum.  The blue line is a best-fit model that takes into account the data, the known properties of WASP-39 b and its star (e.g., size, mass, temperature), and assumed characteristics of the atmosphere. Researchers can vary the parameters in the model – changing unknown characteristics like cloud height in the atmosphere and abundances of various gases – to get a better fit and further understand what the atmosphere is really like.  At upper left, data from NIRISS shows fingerprints of potassium (K), water (H2O), and carbon monoxide (CO). At upper right, data from NIRCam shows a prominent water signature. At lower left, data from NIRSpec indicates water, sulfur dioxide (SO2), carbon dioxide (CO2), and carbon monoxide (CO). At lower right, additional NIRSpec data reveals all of these molecules as well as sodium (Na). 
Full Size Original
Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, J. Olmsted (STScI)

The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope just scored another first: a molecular and chemical portrait of a distant world’s skies. While Webb and other space telescopes, including the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, have previously revealed isolated ingredients of this heated planet’s atmosphere, the new readings provide a full menu of atoms, molecules, and even signs of active chemistry and clouds. The latest data also give a hint of how these clouds might look up close: broken up rather than as a single, uniform blanket over the planet.

The telescope’s array of highly sensitive instruments was trained on the atmosphere of WASP-39 b, a “hot Saturn” (a planet about as massive as Saturn but in an orbit tighter than Mercury) orbiting a star some 700 light-years away. This Saturn-sized exoplanet was one of the first examined by the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope when it began regular science operations. The results have excited the exoplanet science community. Webb’s exquisitely sensitive instruments have provided a profile of WASP-39 b’s atmospheric constituents and identified a plethora of contents, including water, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, sodium and potassium.

Short gamma-ray bursts traced farther into distant universe

Credit: W. M. Keck Observatory/Adam Makarenko

A Northwestern University-led team of astronomers has developed the most extensive inventory to date of the galaxies where short gamma-ray bursts (SGRBs) originate.

Using several highly sensitive instruments and sophisticated galaxy modeling, the researchers pinpointed the galactic homes of 84 SGRBs and probed the characteristics of 69 of the identified host galaxies. Among their findings, they discovered that about 85% of the studied SGRBs come from young, actively star-forming galaxies.

The astronomers also found that more SGRBs occurred at earlier times, when the universe was much younger — and with greater distances from their host galaxies’ centers — than previously known. Surprisingly, several SGRBs were spotted far outside their host galaxies — as if they were “kicked out,” a finding that raises questions as to how they were able to travel so far away.

“This is the largest catalog of SGRB host galaxies to ever exist, so we expect it to be the gold standard for many years to come,” said Anya Nugent, a Northwestern graduate student who led the study focused on modeling host galaxies. “Building this catalog and finally having enough host galaxies to see patterns and draw significant conclusions is exactly what the field needed to push our understanding of these fantastic events and what happens to stars after they die.”

Cosmic chocolate pralines: general neutron star structure revealed

The study of the sound speed has revealed that heavy neutron stars have a stiff mantle and a soft core, while light neutron stars have a soft mantle and a stiff core – much like different chocolate pralines Illustration Credit: P. Kiefer/L. Rezzolla

Through extensive model calculations, physicists at Goethe University Frankfurt have reached general conclusions about the internal structure of neutron stars, where matter reaches enormous densities: depending on their mass, the stars can have a core that is either very stiff or very soft. The findings were published simultaneously in two articles today in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

So far, little is known about the interior of neutron stars, those extremely compact objects that can form after the death of a star: the mass of our sun or even more is compressed into a sphere with the diameter of a large city. Since their discovery more than 60 years ago, scientists have been trying to decipher their structure. The greatest challenge is to simulate the extreme conditions inside neutron stars, as they can hardly be recreated on Earth in the laboratory. There are therefore many models in which various properties – from density and temperature – are described with the help of so-called equations of state. These equations attempt to describe the structure of neutron stars from the stellar surface to the inner core.

Study of ‘polluted’ white dwarfs finds that stars and planets grow together

Study of ‘polluted’ white dwarfs finds that stars and planets grow together 
Credit: Amanda Smith

A team of astronomers have found that planet formation in our young Solar System started much earlier than previously thought, with the building blocks of planets growing at the same time as their parent star.

A study of some of the oldest stars in the Universe suggests that the building blocks of planets like Jupiter and Saturn begin to form while a young star is growing. It had been thought that planets only form once a star has reached its final size, but new results, published in the journal Nature Astronomy, suggest that stars and planets ‘grow up’ together.

The research, led by the University of Cambridge, changes our understanding of how planetary systems, including our own Solar System, formed, potentially solving a major puzzle in astronomy.

“We have a pretty good idea of how planets form, but one outstanding question we’ve had is when they form: does planet formation start early, when the parent star is still growing, or millions of years later?” said Dr Amy Bonsor from Cambridge’s Institute of Astronomy, the study’s first author.

To attempt to answer this question, Bonsor and her colleagues studied the atmospheres of white dwarf stars – the ancient, faint remnants of stars like our Sun – to investigate the building blocks of planet formation. The study also involved researchers from the University of Oxford, the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich, the University of Groningen and the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research, Gottingen.

“Some white dwarfs are amazing laboratories, because their thin atmospheres are almost like celestial graveyards,” said Bonsor.