| LONG BEACH. CALIFORNIA—Planets appear to be everywhere astronomers look, even in orbit around white dwarf stars—the compacted and slowly cooling "corpses" of stars like our own sun. At the 221st meeting of the American Astronomical Society here, researchers reported the discovery of a planetary system around a white dwarf in the famous Hyades star cluster. This cluster is only 150 light-years from Earth and easily visible to the naked eye on a bright winter night. It's only the second time planets have been found in a cluster similar to the one that probably gave birth to our own sun. It's circumstantial evidence, though: The planets apparently stir up the rocky asteroid belt of the system, and as a result, the white dwarf's outer layers become "polluted" with asteroid dust, which in turn is detectable with sensitive spectroscopes. This may be the ultimate fate of our own solar system, after the sun sheds its gaseous mantle into space and condenses into a white dwarf. |
加州长滩消息：天文学家们观察到的地方到处是行星，甚至在白矮星周围都有行星。白矮星是类似我们太阳的恒星在塌缩后慢慢冷却的“死尸”。美国天文学会在这里举行的第221届会议上，研究人员报道：他们发现在著名的毕星团周围存在一个行星系统。毕星团距离地球仅仅150光年，在冬季晴朗的夜晚，人们用肉眼能够很容易地看到。行星在类似于诞生太阳的星团中被发现，这仅仅是第二次。然而，有充分的证据表明，这些行星显然搅乱了系统中的岩石小行星带，结果这颗白矮星的外层受到了小行星尘的“污染”，而小行星尘可以被敏感的分光镜探测到。这有可能就是我们太阳系的最终命运，到那时太阳的气体外围会流入太空，并凝缩成白矮星。 |
