Or you could just have a big object tossed in close to the star. It goes into orbit and it will get torn apart by the gravity of the star once it gets close enough.
Ben Zuckerman
Where the disc comes from is the 4,000 question. However, we believe that it's from a planetary system around this star. Something comets, asteroids, or planets is getting ground up into dust and being pulled into the star.
system question star dust
star close big gravity
It's possible they were formed by some object getting tossed in too close to Saturn and it got torn apart by gravity.
close gravity
If we don't detect metal rich dust around the other white dwarves, we might have to revise our thinking [about the dust's origin],.. The comet impact model looked pretty good 10 years ago, but it doesn't look so good anymore. There's still a lot of mystery
mystery model good thinking impact metal white dust rich pretty
Something's got to be replenishing these metals,.. The suggestion is maybe this white dwarf had planets around it, and the system was substantial enough that after billions of years of grinding, there's still enough material to feed the dust disc around the white dwarf.
system white dust
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