Scientists have discovered distant stars that appear to have been polluted by space debris. The pair of dead stars can be found in a cluster about 150 light years from Earth.
Recent observations seem to point to their atmospheres being covered in debris from asteroids. The discovery was made using the Hubble Space Telescope, allowing astronomers to view the cores of two white dwarf stars.
Researchers were able to determine the chemical "fingerprints" of the pair's atmospheres, as well as evidence of silicon and carbon. These two substances together are important in the formation of rocky planets.
Scientists believe this is significant because it seems to suggest that the ingredients for forming planets similar to Earth may be more common than we previously though.
"We have identified chemical evidence for the Lego building blocks of rocky planets," says the study's lead author Jay Farihi, an astronomer at the University of Cambridge in England, in a NASA statement. "The debris is at least as rocky as the most primitive terrestrial bodies in our solar system."
"When these stars were born, they built planets, and there's a good chance they currently retain some of them. The material we are seeing is evidence of this," Farihi added. "The debris is at least as rocky as the most primitive terrestrial bodies in our solar system."
The research teams theorizes that the debris may have been grabbed from a group of asteroids orbiting around the stars, which are being broken to bits as they're gravitationally pulled in.
The stars were found in the Hyades star cluster, which is located in the northern constellation of Taurus. The cluster is relatively young (in astronomical terms), around 625 million years old.
The study was published in the May 2 issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
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