HIGHLIGHTS 

Even ancient, dying stars, scientists now believe, may produce a new planet.

Within a million years after the Sun's creation, Earth was formed.

In a protoplanetary disc, a second generation of planets can emerge.

WHY IN NEWS 

Planets develop rather quickly after stars have created. The Sun, for example, originated 4.6 billion years ago, whereas the Earth formed around 4.5 billion years ago. However, experts now believe that this is not the only possibility. They claim that planets can develop long after a star has created, even if it is reaching its end. The idea of dying stars contributing to the creation of planets is a novel one. If validated, this discovery might revolutionise our understanding of the universe's functioning and planetary evolution. After the Sun formed initially, the Earth and other planets in our solar system formed quickly. Matter around the Sun clumped into a protoplanetary disc within a million years of its origin.

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Planets were created on this disc, which is a massive pancake consisting of dust and gas with the Sun in the centre. However, young stars, such as the Sun, aren't the only ones that have a disc of raw material spinning around them. These discs can also be seen on certain ancient, dying stars. For example, one of the binary stars — two stars orbiting each other — is dying. According to a research published in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics titled 'A population of transition discs surrounding evolved stars: Fingerprints of planets,' the gravitational attraction of the second star may cause the ejected material from the dying star to create a new revolving disc.

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But we already knew that. The notion of a second generation of planets forming in the disc is novel. According to the study, planets develop in one out of every ten binary stars. Jacques Kluska, the study's first author and a KU Leuven astronomer, revealed that they discovered a large cavity in the disc in 10% of the evolved binary stars with discs they studied. Kluska went on to say that this meant something was floating nearby and had gathered all of the stuff in the cavity's proximity. This object might very well be a planet, but scientists aren't positive just yet. The riddle is likely to be solved with more investigation.