Hubble cold case: dead star may have spawned a new planet

Astronomers revisiting 1999 Hubble archival data found an unusually high abundance of niobium around the white dwarf HS 0209+0832, a signature of material expelled by a dying star. TESS brightness variations suggest a Jupiter-sized planet may orbit just 6 million km from the star. The study appears in Nature Astronomy.

• Hubble's 1999 data held about 100 unidentified chemical features, many matching niobium
• TESS detected recurring brightness changes in the white dwarf over four months
• The candidate planet is a Jupiter-sized gas giant orbiting ~6 million km from the star
• Niobium is heavier than iron and forms only in dying stars, not in stellar cores