Astronomy and Planetary Science Thread

First Ever Detection Of A Phoenix Planet Around A White Dwarf – Born After Its Star Had Died

The peculiar chemical signature discovered in the atmosphere of a white dwarf indicates a planet being destroyed.
But this dying planet has elements that could only have come from a second bout of planetary formation.
"It's a completely new kind of type of planet. It doesn't look like anything in the Solar System, and it doesn't really look like anything that we've seen in the universe before,” Jamie Williams, from the University of Warwick, told IFLScience.
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I’ve seen some scientists online be surprised by this award not just because this is to one person for a collaboration of hundreds of people. They are aware it can infamously only be awarded to a maximum of three people, but really just one person seems to be the attitude. But more so for awarding just a detection with no agreed upon physical explanation yet. Pointing out in the past that theoretical predictions have had to wait for experimental evidence such as with the Higgs Boson. So why doesn’t it work the other way round where you have experimental evidence but no theoretical explanation.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cq203mymlvkeo
 
NASA’s Webb Provides Crash Course on Planet-Shattering Collisions

In the early history of our solar system, scientists theorize that a Mars-sized object called Theia smashed into the infant Earth, vaporizing massive amounts of rock and blasting it into space. Some of that material coalesced into the Moon, where NASA’s Artemis program is returning humans, preparing for Mars, and shaping the future of space exploration.

That long-ago, violent collision reshaped our home planet. Astronomers have used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to examine a class of young stellar systems that show signs of similar upheavals, providing clues to the amount of energy in their collisions. The results offer insights into the composition and evolution of these chaotic systems.
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A short video from NASA Goddard concerning white-dwarf planets:


What if a star’s death could give rise to an entirely new planet?

Astronomers revisiting decades-old observations from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope found an unexpected chemical clue around a white dwarf: niobium, a heavy element forged during the final stages of a star’s life.

Combined with observations from other NASA missions, the evidence points to an intriguing possibility: a Jupiter-sized world may have formed from material expelled when the star died.

If confirmed, this “second-generation” planet could reveal that the death of a star isn’t always the end of its planetary system. Sometimes, it might be the beginning of a new one.​
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An interesting video about a hurricane that shouldn't have happened:


For some reason, hurricanes are terrified of South America. In fact, as long as we’ve been keeping track, it’s only EVER been hit by ONE! Hurricane Catarina was the hurricane that, according to meteorology, never should have happened. So how did it? On this episode of Weathered, we take a tour of hurricane regions around the world to answer that question. And we find out what Catarina can teach us about how hurricanes really work, and how they’re changing.​
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