Planetary Tales from the Stellar Crypt: Exoplanets Surviving the Death of their Host Star

Planetary Tales from the Stellar Crypt: Exoplanets Surviving the Death of their Host Star John Debes, Space Telescope Science Institute What happens to a planetary system when its host star exhausts its fuel and dies? For most sun-like stars, their deaths end in a whimper and not a bang, leaving behind a stellar corpse called a white dwarf. Many orbiting planets may survive these relatively gentle death throes, and can have observable influences on their host white dwarf. This unique sub-field of astronomy