Destroyer of Worlds: Planet-Killing Star On the Loose

Astronomers have detected a star which has already destroyed several celestial bodies and keeps going.

NASA's Kepler Space Telescope has discovered evidence of a dying star which has essentially taken its orbiting planets down with it.

The star in question is a white dwarf designated as WD 1145+017, located in the Virgo constellation approximately 570 light years away from Earth.

The star had already attracted the astronomer's attention in 2015 when they discovered a small planet orbiting the white dwarf. The planet, roughly the size of Ceres asteroid, is being slowly disintegrated by the baleful celestial body in a process which may take up to a million years.

Now, however, it seems that there were originally up to 15 celestial bodies orbiting the deadly star, according to Boris Gänsicke, an astronomer at the University of Warwick in England.

"Our sun will one day balloon out to become a red giant star, wiping out Mercury and Venus and maybe Earth, before it becomes a white dwarf. By looking at this white dwarf, we get a look at what the future of the solar system might be like," Gänsicke told Space.com.