Astronomers have finally captured an image of a glowing debris ring and shed some light on how an asteroid was ripped apart to form the ring.

Scientists from the University of Warwick in UK captured the glowing rings, which comprises of dust particles and debris. These rings are formed when the gravity of a star rips an asteroid apart. The dark, red glow is a result of ultraviolet rays illuminating gases produced during collisions among the debris within the ring.

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Lead researcher Christopher Manser from the Astrophysics Group of the University of Warwick said in a statement "We knew about these debris disks around white dwarfs for over 20 years, but have only now been able to obtain the first image of one of these disks."

University Herald reports that the study was "part of a research analyzing white dwarf stars left behind by dead planetary systems" and was published in the journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. Compared to the rings surrounding Saturn, the scale of the white dwarf called SDSS1228+1040 is larger and its debris are way bigger.

"The diameter of the gap inside of the debris ring is 700,000 kilometers [434,960 miles], approximately half the size of the Sun and the same space could fit both Saturn and its rings, which are only around 270,000 km [167,770 miles] across," Manser said. "At the same time, the white dwarf is seven times smaller than Saturn but weighs 2500 times more."

Scientists claim that studying this system would give us an idea of what our own solar system will look like once the sun runs out of fuel.

"When we discovered this debris disk orbiting the white dwarf SDSS1228+1040 back in 2006, we thought we saw some signs of an asymmetric shape. However, we could not have imagined the exquisite details that are now visible in this image constructed from twelve years of data - it was definitely worth the wait," said Boris Gänsicke, Manser's colleague, in a statement.

"Over the past decade, we have learned that remnants of planetary systems around white dwarfs are ubiquitous, and over 30 debris disks have been found by now,"  Gänsicke said. "While most of them are in a stable state, just like Saturn's rings, a handful are seen to change, and it is those systems that can tell us something about how these rings are formed."

Tagsasteroid, asteroid ripped apart, Christopher Manser, University of Warwick, white dwarfs, debris disks, white dwarf stars, Saturn, SDSS1228+1040, solar system, planetary system, Space, glowing debris ring, Saturn's rings, Asteroid Ripped by Dead Star