During the past dozen years my team has utilized spectroscopic studies of white dwarf photospheres 'polluted' by planetary system material to provide bulk chemical compositions in unprecedented detail for rocky bodies outside of the solar system. The goal of my talk is to enlighten the non-expert on a century's worth of white dwarf planetary system discoveries and present a selection of state-of-the-art research efforts. Some highlights include white dwarfs that accrete specific layers of a massive differentiated rocky body (crust, mantle, core), measurements of the water content in extrasolar rocky bodies, detection and interpretation of the accreted light elements Li and Be, assessing the inventory of biologically relevant elements like carbon and phosphorus, and the use of polluted white dwarf stars in wide binary systems with main sequence stars to validate methods of constraining exoplanet interior properties.
Get the latest
Subscribe to our newsletters.