In the Belly of the Beast
AUG 03, 2006
DOI: 10.1063/PT.5.020319
ScienceNow : Every night across the planet, astronomers use the most advanced instruments to tease away new details about the cosmos, and sometimes their efforts catch some rather strange goings on. Take the case of WD0137-349, a collapsed star known as a white dwarf. Based on orbital and temperature data collected by the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope in Chile, a research team has determined that when WD0137-349 was a much bigger red giant star, it swallowed a nearby planetlike object called a brown dwarf, which miraculously survived the experience.
© 2006 American Institute of Physics
