'Completely unexpected': Astronomers spy never-before-seen 'phoenix planet' rising from the ashes of a dead star

Astronomers have spotted a never-before-seen type of "phoenix planet" rising from the ashes of a dying alien sun.

The discovery, which the scientists say was "completely unexpected," raises hopes that more of these reborn alien worlds could be lurking throughout the cosmos — and may offer a glimpse of our own solar system's fate.

The unnamed exoplanet was spotted circling the white dwarf HS 0209+0832 , which is located roughly 270 light-years from Earth.

White dwarfs are stellar remnants, sometimes dubbed "zombie stars," that form from the leftovers of massive red giants that run out of fuel before eventually collapsing into shriveled husks.

HS 0209+0832 is a particularly young white dwarf, still burning at around 63,000 degrees Fahrenheit (35,000 degrees Celsius), which suggests it made this transition within the past few million years.

Scientists previously discovered some surprising heavy elements within the visible spectrum of HS 0209+0832, which was first captured by the Hubble Space Telescope in the late 1990s.

These elements ‪—‬ which included aluminium, titanium and nickel ‪—‬ are not normally found inside white dwarfs, so their presence suggested that something unusual was going on.

But until now, there was not enough data to figure out what.

In the new study, published Oct.

5 in the journal Nature Astronomy , researchers took a closer look at HS 0209+0832.

Using some of Hubble's updated instruments and data from other observatories, the team captured a more detailed spectrum of the stellar zombie.

This revealed a high concentration of additional heavy elements, including zinc and copper, as well as niobium, which has never been seen in a white dwarf before.

The researchers think these out-of-place elements were created during the death throes of the former red giant and later coalesced into a "second-generation" planet around the newly forged white dwarf.

They suspect the atmosphere of this hypothetical planet is being stripped by the white dwarf's stellar winds, causing the rare elements to fall back onto the zombie star.