Using advanced AI techniques, astronomers led by the University of Texas at Austin have identified hundreds of white dwarf stars consuming planets, offering unprecedented insights into the composition of distant worlds.
In a groundbreaking advancement, astronomers have utilized artificial intelligence to uncover hundreds of “polluted” white dwarf stars in the Milky Way, revealing stars in the act of consuming nearby planets. Spearheaded by University of Texas at Austin graduate student Malia Kao, this discovery could revolutionize our understanding of planetary interiors within and beyond our solar system.
These polluted stars, which bear the heavy metals of consumed planets in their atmospheres, serve as a window into the makeup of disintegrated planets. Such stars are notoriously difficult to identify manually due to their subtle signals and the narrow time frame during which they can be observed.
“For polluted white dwarfs, the inside of the planet is literally being seared onto the surface of the star for us to look at,” Kao said in a news release. “Polluted white dwarfs right now are the best way we can characterize planetary interiors.”
Remarkably, the research team employed a novel AI technique known as manifold learning to sift through data from the Gaia space telescope — a mission by the European Space Agency — to identify these elusive stars. Manifold learning, a form of machine learning, identifies patterns and clusters similar data points together in a simplified format, significantly easing the review process.
“Gaia provides one of the largest spectroscopic surveys of white dwarfs to date, but the data is so low resolution that we thought it wouldn’t be possible to find polluted white dwarfs with it,” co-author Keith Hawkins, an associate professor of astronomy at UT Austin, said in the news release. “This work shows that you can.”
The researchers’ painstaking efforts resulted in identifying a noteworthy cluster of 375 stars out of over 100,000 white dwarf candidates. Follow-up observations using the Hobby-Eberly Telescope at UT’s McDonald Observatory confirmed these stars as polluted white dwarfs, each bearing the chemical scars of their former planetary companions.
The team’s algorithm drastically increases the number of known polluted white dwarfs, promising to enhance our understanding of planetary diversity and geology beyond our solar system. This paves the way for more profound inquiries into the potential for life elsewhere in the universe.
“Ultimately, we want to determine whether life can exist outside of our solar system,” Kao said. “If ours is unique among planetary systems, it might also be unique in its ability to sustain life.”
The team’s findings were recently published in Astrophysical Journal.
Through the convergence of stellar data and cutting-edge computational techniques, this research marks a significant stride toward unveiling the mysteries embedded in the cosmos, opening new frontiers in the quest to understand the universe we inhabit.