This artist’s concept illustrates a comet being torn to shreds around a dead star, or white dwarf, called G29-38. (Image: C GSF/Caltech/JPL/NASA)
IT SEEMS we got off lightly in the cosmic lottery. Deadly comet impacts may be much rarer in our solar system than in others nearby.
We can’t directly measure the rate of comet collisions in other solar systems but we can detect signs of the dust that such smashes kick up because the dust gets warmed by the star and so gives off infrared radiation. That radiation shows up as extra infrared in the spectrum of light coming from the star. Because such dust…
