Surf Wiki
Save to docs
general/hercules-constellation

From Surf Wiki (app.surf) — the open knowledge base

GD 362

Star in the constellation Hercules

Star in the constellation Hercules

| b-v=0.2

GD 362 is a white dwarf approximately 183 light-years from Earth.

In 2006, Benjamin Zuckerman, Michael Jura and other astronomers used the Keck telescope to obtain high-resolution spectra of GD 362 which showed that heavy elements in the star's atmosphere occurred in concentrations similar to those in the Earth-Moon system. The group concluded that a possible origin for GD 362's dust ring and atmospheric pollutants was that a rocky asteroid about 200 km in diameter was disintegrated by tidal effects between 100,000 and 1 million years ago. If this was the origin, the spectra indicate that the asteroid should have had composition similar to the Earth's crust, suggesting that the star might have had an Earth-like planet before it entered its red giant phase.

GD 362 has an exceptionally strong infrared excess. 2.4% of the star light is re-processed into the mid-infrared. Optical spectroscopy can only probe material that did already fall into the atmosphere. Infrared spectroscopy can however directly probe the material of the disk. James Webb Space Telescope spectroscopy did find strong silicate emission between 9 to 11 μm. This feature can be explained by a combination of olivine and pyroxene silicate minerals. Dust modelling showed that the minerals ferrosilite (28.3%), amorphous olivine (24.1%) and forsterite (12.6%) have the highest mass fraction. Additionally the emission in the near-infrared requires grains such as carbon. The carbon and silicates reside inside a disk located within 140 to 1400 stellar radii from the white dwarf and the disk has a scale height greater than half the stellar radius. This is just outside the Roche limit and requires hot debris with a temperature of 950 K close to the star. The element abundance matches with the abundance from optical spectroscopy, except for hydrogen. The elemental abundance of the disk also matches that of CI chondrites, with aluminium elevated and oxygen slightly depleted. The mineral composition is however different to CI chondrites, as the disk does not contain any phyllosilicates.

In 2009 it was discovered that this white dwarf has an anomalous high hydrogen content. This could come from the accretion of a water-rich body with a mass between Callisto and Mars. The origin of the high amount of hydrogen is however still up for debate. JWST spectroscopy did probe the material of the disk and found it to be very dry. No H-bearing minerals and no water is detected inside the disk. The large amount of hydrogen in the atmosphere could be explained by a past accretion of an ice-rich body, different to the body that formed the disk currently present.

JWST imaging exclude stars or brown dwarfs with masses greater than as companions.

GD 362 has been a white dwarf for approximately 900 million years.

References

References

  1. [http://vizier.u-strasbg.fr/vizier/VizieR/constellations.htx Constellation boundaries], [[Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg. CDS]]. Accessed on line October 4, 2007.
  2. [http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2003ApJ...582.1011S Improved Astrometry and Photometry for the Luyten Catalog. II. Faint Stars and the Revised Catalog], Samir Salim and Andrew Gould, ''Astrophysical Journal'' '''582''', #2 (January 2003), pp. 1011–1031; [[Centre de Données astronomiques de Strasbourg. CDS]] ID [http://vizier.u-strasbg.fr/viz-bin/Cat?J/ApJ/582/1011 J/ApJ/582/1011]. Entry for NLTT 44986. Accessed on line October 4, 2007.
  3. [http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2004ApJ...617L..57G Discovery of a Cool, Massive, and Metal-rich DAZ White Dwarf], A. Gianninas, P. Dufour, and P. Bergeron, ''The Astrophysical Journal'' '''617''', #1 (December 2004), pp. L57–L60.
  4. "GD 362".
  5. In 2004, [[spectroscopic]] observations showed that it had a relatively high concentration of [[metal (astronomy). photometric]] observations suggested that it was surrounded by a ring of dust with size comparable to the [[Saturn's rings. rings of Saturn]], providing an explanation for this pollution.[http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2005ApJ...632L.119B A Dusty Disk around GD 362, a White Dwarf with a Uniquely High Photospheric Metal Abundance], E.E. Becklin, J. Farihi, M. Jura, Inseok Song, A. J. Weinberger, and B. Zuckerman, ''The Astrophysical Journal'' '''632''', #2 (October 2005), pp. L119–L122.
  6. Dunham, Will. (2007-08-16). "Burned-out star harbors signs of Earthlike planets". [[Reuters]].
  7. Zuckerman. (2007). "The Chemical Composition of an Extrasolar Minor Planet". The Astrophysical Journal.
  8. (2007-08-16). "GD 362 Shows Signs It Had An Earthlike Planet". Scientificblogging.com.
  9. (2009-07-01). "X-Ray and Infrared Observations of Two Externally Polluted White Dwarfs". The Astrophysical Journal.
  10. (2018-09-01). "Evidence of water accretion in GD 362?". Physics of Oscillating Stars.
  11. (2015-06-01). "Likely detection of water-rich asteroid debris in a metal-polluted white dwarf". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
  12. "Stars with Exoplanets: GD 362".
  13. {{Cite Gaia DR3. 1336442472164656000
  14. (2025). "Composition of planetary debris around the white dwarf GD 362".
Info: Wikipedia Source

This article was imported from Wikipedia and is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Content has been adapted to SurfDoc format. Original contributors can be found on the article history page.

hercules-(constellation) white-dwarfs circumstellar-disks
Want to explore this topic further?

Ask Mako anything about GD 362 — get instant answers, deeper analysis, and related topics.

Research with Mako

Free with your Surf account

Content sourced from Wikipedia, available under CC BY-SA 4.0.

This content may have been generated or modified by AI. CloudSurf Software LLC is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Always verify important information from primary sources.

Report