Astronomers say real-life 'death star' destroying faraway rocky object

Associated Press ^ | October 22, 2015 | Associated Press

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CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. – A white dwarf star in the Constellation Virgo turns out to be a "death star" worthy of "Star Wars."

Astronomers announced Wednesday that they have discovered a rocky object coming apart in a death spiral around this distant star. They used NASA's exoplanet-hunting Kepler spacecraft to make the discovery, then followed up with ground observations.

"This is something no human has seen before," said Andrew Vanderburg of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the lead author.

"We're watching a solar system get destroyed," he said in a statement.

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"This is something no human has seen before," said Andrew Vanderburg of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the lead author.

There is SO much out there we don't know.