A dead star is ripping apart its planets in 'cosmic cannibalism'

A star when alive and kicking, can literally be life-giver in its planetary system. Take for example the Solar System. The Sun created the planetary system, and endowed Earth with life itself. The planets peacefully revolve around the star and everything is somewhat alright.

But astronomers have now observed a dead star who is involved in what is being called 'cosmic cannibalism. The dead star is ripping apart its own planetary system.

The star is called G238-44. It is a White Dwarf star. Normal star the size of our Sun, on completion of its life, becomes a White Dwarf.

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However, prior to becoming a White Dwarf, such star becomes Red Giant. In this phase, it expands rapidly and disrupts orbits of the planets revolving around it. This sends them on a haywire path.

What's happening, in this case, is that the planets are disintegrating due to the tidal forces of the White Dwarf. The result is total chaos with planetary material falling onto the White Dwarf star.

We may get to witness this cosmic process from afar but 5 billion years in future whenthe Solar System will meet the same fate.

"When a star like our Sun expands into a bloated red giant late in its life, it will shed mass by puffing off its outer layers. One consequence of this can be the gravitational scattering of small objects like asteroids, comets, and moons by any remaining large planets. Like pinballs in an arcade game, the surviving objects can be thrown into highly eccentric orbits," says NASA on its website.

"...5 billion years from now. Earth might be completely vaporized along with the inner planets. But the orbits of many of the asteroids in the main asteroid belt will be gravitationally perturbed by Jupiter and will eventually fall onto the white dwarf that the remnant Sun will become."