Dr. Tim Cunningham -- White Dwarfs Sometimes Eat Planets

A white dwarf star is the compact, dense remnant of a once-thriving solar system. Long after the original star has died and turned into a white dwarf, it can still interact with its solar system. We can even see white dwarfs eating up the rocky debris that once made up their solar system, and apparently making sense of all of this requires a detailed understanding of how convection works in these dead stellar remnants.