Two Earth-sized heavenly bodies with O2 in atmospheres ‘found’

Planetary scientists have discovered two Earth-sized bodies with oxygen rich atmospheres — however, they are not planets but are actually two unusual white dwarf stars.

The two white dwarf stars SDSS 0922+2928 and SDSS 1102+2054 are 400 and 220 light years from Earth are both the remnants of massive stars that are at the end of their stellar evolution having consumed all the material they had available for nuclear fusion.

Searching within an astronomical data set of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), a team from University of Warwick and Kiel University did indeed discover two white dwarfs with large atmospheric oxygen abundances.

Team leader Dr Boris Gänsicke of Warwick University said: “These surface abundances of oxygen imply that these are white dwarfs displaying their bare oxygen-neon cores, and that they may have descended from the most massive progenitors stars in that class.” READ MORE…

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