Ben Zuckerman Quotes

Where the disc comes from is the $64,000 question. However, we believe that it's from a planetary system around this star. Somethingcomets, asteroids, or planetsis getting ground up into dust and being pulled into the star.

- Ben Zuckerman

Tags

Disc | Question | Planetary | System | Star |

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Something's got to be replenishing these metals... The suggestion is maybe this white dwarf had planets around it, and the system was substantial enough that after billions of years of grinding, there's still enough material to feed the dust disc around the white dwarf. - Ben Zuckerman

It's possible they were formed by some object getting tossed in too close to Saturn and it got torn apart by gravity. - Ben Zuckerman

If we don't detect metal rich dust around the other white dwarves, we might have to revise our thinking [about the dust's origin]... The comet impact model looked pretty good 10 years ago, but it doesn't look so good anymore. There's still a lot of mystery. - Ben Zuckerman