Ponce de León never discovered the Fountain of Youth, but scientists may have discovered the key to eternal exoplanetary youth.
Astronomers monitoring a white star named PG 0010+280 discovered an overabundance of infrared radiation; at first, the scientists assumed the excess was a product of the nebula surround PG 0010+280, but it soon became clear that the source was a nearby exoplanet (planets that orbit a star other than our own), giving credence to exoplanet rejuvenation, which up until now has only been hypothetical.
According to observations through NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope, it seems that rejuvenation happens when exoplanets come into contact with excess material shed from dying red stars, as those stars eventually balloon, sending stellar plasma out into the ether. When exoplanets come into contact with this cosmic material, they swell in size and significantly rise in temperature, thus sending out infrared light from the atmosphere.
"When planets are young, they still glow with infrared light from their formation," explained scientist Michael Jura in a study published in The Astrophysical Journal. "But as they get older and cooler, you can't see them anymore. Rejuvenated planets would be visible again."
So why does this matter? It could dictate the survival of other planets like it - and perhaps, one day, our own. Siyi Xu, based out of UCLA and the European Southern Observatory in Germany, stated, "If confirmed, it would directly tell us that some planets can survive the red giant stage of stars and be present around white dwarfs."
