10-billion-year-old ruins of Earth-like planet found around nearby star
It’s easy to forget our place in the universe, but planets have been born, lived and died long before Earth even existed. Now astronomers have detected the ruins of ancient planets around two unusual white dwarf stars, including an Earth-like world that existed almost 10 billion years ago.When most stars, including our Sun, run out of hydrogen to burn, they swell up into a red giant, then eventually shed their outer layers and leave behind a dense core, known as a white dwarf. Any planets that may have been orbiting the…