NASA Scientist Discovers Oldest White Dwarf Star With Puzzling Rings news.google.com

WASHINGTON: A citizen scientist working for NASA has found the oldest and coldest known white dwarf – an Earth-sized remnant of a Sun-like star that has died – ringed by dust and debris. Astronomers suspect this could be the first known white dwarf with multiple dust rings. The star, LSPM J0207+3331 or J0207, is forcing researchers to reconsider models of planetary systems and could help us learn about the distant future of our solar system. "This white dwarf is so old that whatever process is feeding material into its rings must operate on billion-year timescales," said John Debes, an astronomer at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, working with the NASA-led Backyard Worlds: Planet 9 project.