Washington, Aug.18 (ANI): Astronomers from the University of California- Los Angeles (UCLA) have, after studying the chemical fingerprint of a burned-out white dwarf star GD 362, claimed the existence of Earth-like planets in other parts of the universe.

They believe that this discovery could give clues to what our solar system will look like when the sun becomes a white dwarf star some five billion years from now.

UCLA astronomers think that after about a billion years orbiting the white dwarf as part of an ancient planetary system, an asteroid got close enough to the star to be torn apart by its very strong gravitational force field.

An Earth-sized but exceedingly dense white dwarf is the standard end state for most stars. This particular white dwarf, which is under investigation by the W.M. Keck Observatory in Hawaii, is located in the constellation Hercules, approximately 150 light-years, or 1,000 trillion miles, from Earth.

The asteroid broke apart into dust particles that orbited the white dwarf and over time “polluted the white dwarf’s atmosphere,” claims Benjamin Zuckerman, UCLA professor of physics and astronomy and lead author of the research.

The research has been accepted for publication in an upcoming issue of the Astrophysical Journal, the premier journal of astronomy.

The astronomers note that the spectroscopic observations they are reporting constitute the first detailed assessment of the elemental composition of an object in an extra-solar planetary system.

“What we have here is a composition of the white dwarf that is fairly similar to that of the inner planets of our solar system,” said Michael Jura, UCLA professor of physics and astronomy and co-author of the research.

“Are there other terrestrial planets like Earth in other solar systems" This white dwarf’s fingerprint is a significant advance in demonstrating that something like terrestrial planet formation occurred around this other star and probably occurred around other stars as well, because it suggests the Earth’s composition is not unique,” he added.

The research implies that the forces that made the Earth and our inner solar system seem to have occurred in this system as well, and probably around other white dwarfs too, Jura said.

Zuckerman said the research result does not rule out the possibility that two planets in this ancient planetary system collided and the orbiting dust and detected elements are from a piece of one of the colliding planets rather than from a more conventional asteroid.

“Something dramatic and violent probably happened,” he said.

Our own planetary system looks very stable, Zuckerman said, but billions of years from now, when the sun starts to expand in size and lose mass rapidly, the planets and asteroids will spiral away, and the planets closest to the sun, like Mercury and Venus, will be engulfed by the sun and destroyed, he adds.

The asteroid likely broke up more than 100,000 years ago, and perhaps as long as a million years ago, the astronomers said. The star became a very hot white dwarf approximately one- billion years ago, and since then, has been steadily cooling off.

Unlike GD 362, most white dwarfs are pristine in their composition. (ANI)