Neptune-Sized Planet Found Orbiting a Dead White Dwarf Star. Here’s the Crazy Part, the Planet is 4 Times Bigger Than the Star

Astronomers have found a white dwarf star which appears to be surrounded by a truncated disc of gas. The disc was probably created from a gas planet being torn apart by its gravity.

Astronomers have discovered a large Neptune-sized planet orbiting a white dwarf star. The planet is four times bigger than the star, and the white dwarf appears to be slowly destroying the planet: the heat from the white dwarf is evaporating material from the planet’s atmosphere, forming a comet-like tail.

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Podcast: Accretion Discs

When too much material tries to come together, everything starts to spin and flatten out. You get an accretion disc. Astronomers find them around newly forming stars, supermassive black holes and many other places in the Universe. Today we’ll talk about what it takes to get an accretion disc, and how they help us understand the objects inside.

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“Accretion Discs” on the Astronomy Cast website, with shownotes and transcript.

And the podcast is also available as a video, as Fraser and Pamela now record Astronomy Cast as part of a Google+ Hangout (usually recorded every Monday at 3 pm Eastern Time):