
Astronomers spy an iron planet stripped of its crust around a burned-out star - furcyd
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/04/astronomers-spy-iron-planet-stripped-its-crust-around-burned-out-star
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dctoedt
The last grafs bring to mind Arthur C. Clarke's Hugo-winning 1955 short story
_The Star_. [0]

[0]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star_(Clarke_short_story)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Star_\(Clarke_short_story\))

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arethuza
It reminded me of the meeting location at the start of _The Hydrogen Sonata_
by Iain M. Banks.

[I seem to remember it was a sliver of a planet held around an exploding star
used as a meeting location - largely because doing that kind of thing is cool
if you are godlike AIs].

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arethuza
_" The two craft met within the blast-shadow of the planetary fragment called
Ablate, a narrow twisted scrue of rock three thousand kilometres long and
shaped like the hole in a tornado."_

[https://www.orbitbooks.net/orbit-excerpts/the-hydrogen-
sonat...](https://www.orbitbooks.net/orbit-excerpts/the-hydrogen-sonata/)

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ericol
> It collapses into a small and dense white dwarf, which cools over trillions
> of years. Its intense gravity can rip apart any surviving planets that stray
> too close

How is the gravity from the white dwarf different from the previous state (red
giants) of the star? Doen't they have basically the same mass? (Actually less,
as they burn)

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blacksmith_tb
I am also curious about the cool-off period of white dwarf stars being
measured in 'trillions of years' \- given that the universe is only 13.8
billion years old, I assume we are just modeling that?

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mlindner
Yes. These will eventually cool into so-called "black dwarfs" that emit very
little light.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_dwarf](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_dwarf)

They cool so slowly because they are so dense it's very hard for energy to
escape.

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binaryapparatus
"Nidavellir is real? Seriously? I mean, that place is a legend. They make the
most powerful, horrific weapons to ever torment the universe. I would very
much like to go there, please."

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booleandilemma
_An artist’s impression..._

Damn it!

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scandinavegan
I've been reading about space to my six-year old and there are a lot of neat
real photographs of the solar system. Then we followed it up with a book on
dinosaurs where he proclaimed "That's a drawing!"

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SiempreViernes
Article that isn't sullied by an infection of a clickbait title:
www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/04/astronomers-spy-iron-planet-stripped-its-
crust-around-burned-out-star

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lugg
[http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/04/astronomers-spy-
iron-...](http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/04/astronomers-spy-iron-planet-
stripped-its-crust-around-burned-out-star)

~~~
e40
HTTPS version

[https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/04/astronomers-spy-
iron...](https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2019/04/astronomers-spy-iron-planet-
stripped-its-crust-around-burned-out-star)

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srcmap

        "I felt a great disturbance in the Force, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced. I fear something terrible has happened." 
    
        ―Obi-Wan Kenobi,

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super_mario
It's just a rendering artifact (a glitch if you will) in the simulation.
Nothing to worry about.

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timdiggerm
What? Why even say this?

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super_mario
I guess Hacker News community doesn't like jokes.

