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Astronomers Can See the Impact Site Where an Asteroid Crashed Into a White Dwarf

When a star like the Sun reaches the end of its life, it becomes a red giant and blows away its outer layers, leaving an exposed core - a white dwarf. What happens to its planets? Some were consumed when it became a red giant; others could spiral inward and impact the star. Astronomers have found white dwarfs that were polluted with metals in the past, but now they've found one with a metal scar on its surface, where a large, metal-rich asteroid crashed onto the surface.

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