Overview
- Astronomers report that LSPM J0207+3331, 145 light-years away, hosts the oldest and most metal-rich debris disk observed around a hydrogen-rich white dwarf.
- High-resolution Keck spectra reveal the star’s atmosphere is polluted by 13 elements, indicating tidal disruption of a rocky object at least ~120 miles (200 kilometers) wide.
- The chemical abundances and rapid sinking of heavy elements point to ongoing or very recent accretion within the past few million years.
- Researchers infer a delayed gravitational disturbance as the trigger, with surviving giant planets or a past stellar encounter proposed as possibilities.
- The peer-reviewed findings appear in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, and follow-up with ESA’s Gaia and NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope is being pursued to search for distant perturbers.