A team of cosmologists developed a new theory about the origin of planets, as they found that stars that are about to die are able to create planets around them, a process that would reinterpret many concepts about the origin of the universe.
The prevailing belief among scientists was that planets usually come after the emergence of stars, as is the case in the solar system. The emergence of the sun's star was about 4.6 billion years ago, then the Earth came after it within 4.5 billion years.
But this study, conducted by scientists from the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, and its results were published in the February issue of the journal Astronomy and Astrophysics, revealed the existence of other factors in the formation of planets that were not known before.
The genesis of planets comes from the gases and atoms surrounding dead stars in the form of rings (The Catholic University of Leuven)
binary stars
The scientists said in the press release issued by the university on the first of February this year, that the emergence of the planets of the solar system, for example, was from the gases and atoms surrounding the star of the sun in the form of rings, and here scientists are talking about a million years that separated the emergence of the Earth from the star of the sun.
But these rings composed of gas and atoms that surround the stars in anticipation of the birth of new planets, we do not find them only around the newly emerging stars, but they can arise independently of any star that is about to die, as is the case in the binary stars that one of them is about to die, where we can find These rings around it.
The researcher supervising the study, Jack Kluska, said - in the press release - that his scientific team members studied many sprawling binary stars in our vast universe, and they number about 85 binary stars, and they found that about 10% of these stars whose system is about to die, are surrounded by gases and dust, And its components indicate the near emergence of planets.
Jack Kluska added - in the press release - "We also found that some heavy metals such as iron have disappeared from the rings that hover around these dead stars, and this is great scientific evidence of the imminent birth of a new planet, because the emerging planet is the one that absorbs these materials in preparation for its formation, and from here We concluded that it is possible for planets to arise from dead stars."
A million years between the birth of Earth and the Sun's star (Pixabe)
A theory that needs to be confirmed
Although the great work carried out by the university team was based mainly on data open to the general public, researcher Jack Kluska confirmed that what they reached is still a theory that needs confirmation, because the results of the research are very deep as they give new explanations for the emergence of planets and change a lot of what we were We already know about it.
"Confirming or disproving this amazing new theory about the origins of planets will be a major challenge to existing theories," Professor Hans van Winkle, director of the Institute of Cosmology at the Catholic University of Louvain, said in the press release.
To confirm the validity of this new theory, cosmologists at the university will conduct experiments using the large telescopes of the European Observatory "Astral", which was established in the Chilean desert.