Scientists find evidence of a second-generation planet born from a dying star

What happened

A team of scientists found evidence of a planet born from a white dwarf in decades-old Hubble data. Tomorrow Space Scientists find evidence of a second-generation planet born from a dying star If confirmed, it would be the first white dwarf found to host a second-generation planet.

13, 2026 7:46 am EST NASA, ESA, Leah Hustak (STScI) Add Engadget on Google: Preferred Source Google Discover Way back in 1999, NASA's Hubble telescope gathered data from a white dwarf star codenamed HS 0209+0832 with 100 chemical features that couldn't be identified. Now, a team of scientists led by astronomers from the University of Warwick has published a paper in Nature , revealing that those chemical features indicate that the white dwarf hosts a second-generation planet.

It's the dense core left behind after it's done burning up its nuclear fuel and shedding its outer layers. That means they formed using materials from the birth of the sun. Second-generation planets form from the materials a dying star casts off.

Key facts

• A team of scientists — found: evidence of a planet born from a white dwarf in decades-old Hubble data