Alien ‘phoenix planet’ was born from the ashes of a dying star
An artist’s impression of a second-generation planet orbiting the white dwarf HS 0209 0832, the first planet of its kind to be found, in this image released on Oct. 5. | Snehalata Sahu/University of Warwick/Handout via REUTERS
Oct 7, 2026
WASHINGTON – In ancient mythology, the phoenix was a miraculous bird with a cyclical pattern of life and death, perishing in flames only to rise again from the ashes. Astronomers have now found a world that rightly can be called a phoenix planet.
Researchers said this exoplanet, as planets beyond our solar system are called, appears to have been born from material expelled into space during the death throes of a star a bit larger than the sun, and now orbits the highly compact stellar remnant that was left behind, called a white dwarf.
It is classified as a second-generation planet, meaning it did not form from the swirling disk of material surrounding a newborn star, as Earth and other first-generation planets did, but rather from the leftovers of a doomed star.
In a time of both misinformation and too much information,
quality journalism is more crucial than ever.
By subscribing, you can help us get the story right.
KioskNews shows a cleaned-up reading view extracted from the publisher’s page — the original always lives on their site, not ours.