Planet in "habitable zone" near white dwarf: that's the discovery made by astronomers this week. The results of their research were published in the monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society of the United Kingdom.

Professor Jay Farihi of University College London, who was in charge of the research, stated that the discovery was utterly unexpected by astronomers at the time.

This is the first time that anything that is appropriate for the creation of life has been observed in the white dwarf zone of the universe. As a result, Farihi believes that there is a potential that life on the world revolves around him.

In contrast to the death of huge stars, smaller stars, such as our Sun, die and become white dwarfs, which are stars that have used up all of their nuclear fuel and have lost their outer layers as a result of their demise. Typically the size of planets, white dwarfs are illuminated by bluish white light after their creation.
Physicists believe that a hypothetical planet, which is 117 light years away from Earth and 60 times closer to a star than our planet is to the Sun, exists in our galaxy.

No concrete evidence for the presence of this planet has been discovered by the scientific team, but the movement of 65 moon-sized objects around the white dwarf's habitable zone suggests that it may exist. The distance between one structure and another does not fluctuate, indicating that they are influenced by the gravitational pull of surrounding planets, which is consistent with previous findings.

It came as a complete surprise to the team. Prof. Farihi stated that the movement was so incredibly accurate that such a thing could not possibly have been invented.

The habitable zone is a strip of space surrounding a star in which liquid water may exist on a planet and, as a result, be suitable for the existence of life. In either case, the planet will be too hot or too cold depending on its distance from the stars; nevertheless, within that zone of distance, the circumstances will be "just perfect," as long as the planet is within that zone of distance from the stars.

These new research findings should motivate astronomers to pursue direct evidence of planets orbiting white dwarf stars more aggressively.