The discovery of an Earth-like planet orbiting a white dwarf 4,000 light years away in the Milky Way provides a striking preview of Earth’s potential fate billions of years into the future. Astronomers from the University of California, Berkeley identified the distant system using the Keck 10-meter telescope in Hawaii, revealing a white dwarf star with half the mass of the sun and an Earth-sized companion orbiting at a distance twice that of Earth's current orbit.

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As our sun ages, it will expand into a red giant, potentially swallowing Mercury and Venus. Earth may escape this fate by migrating to a larger orbit due to the sun’s decreasing mass. If Earth survives this phase, it could end up in a distant orbit around a white dwarf, as demonstrated by this newly discovered planetary system. However, the Earth would likely become a scorched, uninhabitable world before settling in such an orbit.

The discovery is significant for our understanding of how stars evolve and how planetary systems can survive the transformation of their host stars. It also adds to our knowledge of how gravitational microlensing—a technique where a distant star's light is magnified by the gravity of an intervening object—can help uncover planetary systems that would otherwise be invisible.

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This distant system highlights the possibility of planets like Earth enduring even as their stars die. It also underscores the potential for future observations to reveal more about the universe’s diversity, especially through upcoming missions like NASA's Nancy Grace Roman Telescope, set to launch in 2027, which will focus on finding exoplanets using microlensing techniques.

In the meantime, the discovery fuels speculation about where humanity might find refuge if Earth becomes uninhabitable. If the sun expands into a red giant, the habitable zone will shift to the outer solar system, possibly making moons like Europa, Ganymede, or Enceladus suitable for life.