Till now astronomers thought that when a star dies all the planets that are associated with the star also start counting their last breath. But like always the never ending universe has created more puzzles for the Astronomers.
An international team of Astronomers have reported about an unusual phenomenon that is taking place some 350 light years away from Earth.
They have observed that the dying red giant star named Mira A is being captured in a disk around its smaller companion named Mira B. This is the first step in the creation of a planetary system.
Astronomers have usually referred Mira A as the most celebrated and the best studied star in our galaxy and they were amazed to find this new and unexpected phenomenon.
Astronomers usually find these dusty disks near young stars and they are like nurseries where new planets are formed. This is the first time when such a nursery is found near a dying star.
The discovery will find new ways to search for new planets in the universe. Such new planets that are formed after the death of an old star and can reveal some of the many secrets that the universe holds for us.
Mira A is located at a distance of 350 light years from the earth in constellation Cetus and was first observed some 400 years ago. Its smaller companion was first observed in 1990s by the Hubble Space Telescope. Mira continually changes its color and is also visible to the naked eye for about a month at a time and then reappearing after eleven months.
This red star is very much the same as our sun but now it is dying and is loosing an earth sized mass from its dusty outer layer every seven years. More than one percent of this mass is captured by the gravitational force of the smaller Mira B.
Using better techniques and the Hubble Space telescope, astronomers were also able to determine that the Mira B which was initially thought to be a white dwarf is actually a smaller version of our own sun.
The dying Mira A is 5,000 times brighter than our sun and the heat from this giant star heats the edge of the disk to earth like temperature and that causes the disk to glow in infrared. The dying giant will now be the starting of another planetary system and will also harbor all new possibilities of new worlds in formation. May be some day we find life on some of these planets.
Via: cosmosmagazine
