NASA's Hubble spies on atmosphere of white dwarf being polluted by enormous comet-like object for the first time!

Image courtesy: NASA/ESA/Z. Levay (STScI)

New Delhi: NASA's Hubble Space Telescope has time and again unearthed massive revelations, most of which have turned out to be breakthroughs in the world of space.

Ever since its launch in space in 1990, it has helped scientists in more than ways than one, to reach out into the depths of the universe and discover numerous things that would have otherwise, been impossible.

Delving deep into the structure and evolution of the universe, Hubble has played the role of astronomers' and scientists' third eye, often digging out information that was least expected.

Get ready to be stunned once again, because Hubble has beamed back a stunner – again!

In a first, using Hubble, scientists have come across a colossal object disguised as a comet being ripped apart and dispersed in the atmosphere of a white dwarf, the burned-out remains of a compact star.

With a chemical composition similar to Halley's comet, the object is 100,000 times more gigantic and contains water, the amount of which is much higher.

It is also rich in the elements essential for life, including nitrogen, carbon, oxygen, and sulfur.

These findings present evidence for a belt of comet-like bodies orbiting the white dwarf, similar to our solar system’s Kuiper Belt. These icy bodies apparently survived the star’s evolution as it became a bloated red giant and then collapsed to a small, dense white dwarf.

According to NASA, As many as 25 to 50 percent of white dwarfs are known to be polluted with infalling debris from rocky, asteroid-like objects, but this is the first time a body made of icy, comet-like material has been seen polluting a white dwarf’s atmosphere.

The results also suggest the presence of unseen, surviving planets which may have perturbed the belt and worked as a “bucket brigade” to draw the icy objects into the white dwarf. The burned-out star also has a companion star, which may disturb the belt, causing objects from the belt to travel toward the burned-out star.

Siyi Xu of the European Southern Observatory in Garching, Germany, led the team that made the discovery. According to Xu, this was the first time that nitrogen was detected in the planetary debris that falls onto a white dwarf. “Nitrogen is a very important element for life as we know it,” Xu explained. “This particular object is quite rich in nitrogen, more so than any object observed in our solar system.”

Extending outward from Neptune’s orbit, our own Kuiper Belt harbours many dwarf planets, comets, and other small bodies left over from the formation of the solar system. Comets from the Kuiper Belt may have been responsible for delivering water and the basic building blocks of life to Earth billions of years ago.

The new findings are observational evidence supporting the idea that icy bodies are also present in other planetary systems, and have survived throughout the history of the star’s evolution, NASA reported.