Evidence for Gas from a Disintegrating Extrasolar Asteroid

Abstract

We report high-resolution spectroscopic observations of WD 1145+017 -- a white dwarf that recently has been found to be transitted by multiple asteroid-sized objects within its tidal radius. We have discovered numerous circumstellar absorption lines with linewidths of $\sim$ 300 km s${}^{-1}$ from Mg, Ca, Ti, Cr, Mn, Fe and Ni, possibly from several gas streams produced by collisions among the actively disintegrating objects. The atmosphere of WD 1145+017 is polluted with 11 heavy elements, including O, Mg, Al, Si, Ca, Ti, V:, Cr, Mn, Fe and Ni. Evidently, we are witnessing the active disintegration and subsequent accretion of an extrasolar asteroid.

ApJ Letters, accepted

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Cited by in corpus (21)

• High-speed photometry of the disintegrating planetesimals at WD1145+017: evidence for rapid dynamical evolution
• The frequency of gaseous debris discs around white dwarfs
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• Relentless and Complex Transits from a Planetesimal Debris Disk
• No evidence for a strong decrease of planetesimal accretion in old white dwarfs
• New chondritic bodies identified in eight oxygen-bearing white dwarfs
• Orbital relaxation and excitation of planets tidally interacting with white dwarfs
• Shallow Ultraviolet Transits of WD 1145+017
• On the role of resonances in polluting white dwarfs by asteroids
• Modeling the Evolution of Silicate/Volatile Accretion Discs around White Dwarfs
• Are the Dyson rings around pulsars detectable?
• Astrometric Gravitational-Wave Detection via Stellar Interferometry
• White Dwarfs with Infrared Excess from LAMOST Data Release 5
• Transiting Disintegrating Planetary Debris around WD 1145+017
• A far-UV survey of three hot, metal-polluted white dwarf stars: WD0455-282, WD0621-376, and WD2211-495
• Revisiting the Chemical Composition of WD 1145+017: Impact of Circumstellar Disks Contamination on Photospheric Abundances
• Generating metal-polluting debris in white dwarf planetary systems from small-impact crater ejecta
• Can tidal evolution lead to close-in planetary bodies around white dwarfs II: volcanism and transits
• Planetesimals drifting through dusty and gaseous white dwarf debris discs: Types I, II and III-like migration
• Characterizing planetary material accreted by cool helium atmosphere white dwarfs using an exponentially decaying disc model
• Partial disruption of a planet around a white dwarf: the effect of perturbation from the remnant planet on the accretion