Astronomers have found that a relatively close white dwarf – the remaining hot, dense core of a dead star – is having a planetary snack. An international team of researchers, led by the University of Warwick in the U.K., said on September 18, 2025, that a white dwarf is consuming a fragment of a former Pluto-like object. The researchers said they found evidence of the cosmic meal when viewing the white dwarf WD 1647+375 in ultraviolet light with NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope. The white dwarf’s strong gravity pulled in the icy Pluto-like world and then tore it to pieces.
Don’t anthropomorphize dead stars. They don’t like it.
Happy cake day!