00:03Our Sun is expected to start dying in a few billion years, so not immediately concerning to anyone living today.
00:09But for the future of humanity, it might be an issue.
00:11As a star like ours goes into its death throes, it will eventually become a red giant and expand out
00:16into its system, gobbling up the planets in close proximity.
00:19But recently, astronomers discovered a Jupiter-sized planet orbiting a white dwarf,
00:24or a planet-sized star that has already gone through the red giant phase and no longer has a fusion
00:28reaction as its energy source.
00:30Meaning, under just the right circumstances, a star like our Sun could still support life even after it's technically dead.
00:36White dwarfs, which are around the size of Earth, aren't just small and dense.
00:39They're also quite stable and stick around for a long time.
00:42Meaning, despite their Goldilocks zone being much smaller, they still have an area around them in which they could support
00:47life.
00:48So far, astronomers have only discovered a Jupiter-sized planet still intact orbiting a white dwarf star.
00:53And experts say that planets of that size are likely quite rare.
00:56Meaning, that could be one of the reasons they survived the white dwarf phase in the first place.
01:00With the researchers adding, this is actually a fairly easy hypothesis to test, since we already know where to look.
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