Hubble Space Telescope:Dead Star Caught Ripping Up Planetary System

Archival data from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope and other NASA observatories were essential in diagnosing this case of cosmic cannibalism.
A star’s death throes have so violently disrupted its planetary system that the dead star left behind, called a white dwarf, is siphoning off debris from both the system’s inner and outer reaches. This is the first time astronomers have observed a white dwarf star that is consuming both rocky-metallic and icy material, the ingredients of planets.
Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center
Paul Morris: Lead Producer

Music & Sound
“Through a Computer Screen” by Raphael Olivier [SACEM] via KTSA Publishing [SACEM] and Universal Production Music

ESA Credit:
Ring of rocky debris around a white dwarf star (artist’s impression)
Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, and G. Bacon (STScI)

Evaporating extrasolar planet, from Video (artist's impression)
Credit: ESA, Alfred Vidal-Madjar (Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, CNRS, France) and NASA.

Red Giant Sun
Credit: ESA/Hubble (M. Kornmesser & L. L. Christensen)

Flight through our Solar System
Credit: ESA/Hubble (M. Kornmesser & L. L. Christensen)

ESO Credit:
Comets in Solar System
Credit on screen with : ESO/L. Calçada/N. Risinger (skysurvey.org)