A dynamo mechanism could explain the incredibly strong magnetic fields in white dwarf stars according to an international team of scientists, including a University of Warwick astronomer.

Scientists at the University of Warwick are to benefit from a total of over €4 million funding to support new projects that will aim to find and analyse the remains of planets around nearby dead stars, and to find new ways of incorporating the ideas of combinatorics into different areas of mathematics.

Astronomers have found evidence that the first exoplanet that was identified transiting its star could have migrated to a close orbit with its star from its original birthplace further away.

Remnants of planets with Earth-like crusts have been discovered in the atmospheres of four nearby white dwarf stars by University of Warwick astronomers, offering a glimpse of the planets that may have once orbited them up to billions of years ago.

An international team of astronomers that includes researchers from the University of Warwick have revealed a system consisting of six exoplanets, five of which are locked in a rare rhythm around their central star. The researchers believe the system could provide important clues about how planets, including those in the Solar System, form and evolve.