Summary:
- White dwarfs are the dense, collapsed cores of dead stars that have exhausted their fuel. They are extremely dense, with the mass of the Sun packed into a volume the size of Earth.
- Astronomers have discovered a white dwarf star that appears to be "eating" rocky debris from its surrounding planetary system. This is providing insights into the final stages of planetary systems.
- As the white dwarf consumes these rocky materials, it is leaving behind a distinctive chemical signature that can be detected by telescopes, allowing scientists to study the composition of these destroyed planets and asteroids.