Stars are born, shine for a very long time, and then die. When a star like our Sun runs out of fuel, it throws off its outer layers. Only its small, hot core is left. This core is called a white dwarf.
Planets usually form from dust and gas around a young star. But a study shared on 5 October 2026 suggests that a planet might also form after a star dies!
An old mystery
In 1999, the Hubble Space Telescope studied a white dwarf called HS 0209+0832. Hubble’s data showed about 100 strange signals that nobody could explain. Jamie Williams, a research student at the University of Warwick in the UK, checked the old data again with an updated chemical list. Many signals came from an element called niobium. No other white dwarf studied so far had shown niobium.
Niobium is made in the extreme conditions inside dying stars. So the team thinks that material thrown out by the dying star may have come together to make a new, “second-generation” planet.
More clues
Another space telescope, called TESS, watched the star for four months. The star’s light changed in a regular pattern. This hints that a gas giant about the size of Jupiter may be circling it, only about 60 lakh kilometres away. That is much closer than Mercury is to our Sun!
For now, scientists call it a “planet candidate”. They need more observations to be sure.
Think about it: Why do you think scientists sometimes go back and study old data again?