English astronomers from the University of Warwick have discovered two stars engaged in a deadly dance. The pair consists of a very massive but also small white dwarf and a larger but lighter star, which is being pulled apart by the gravitational pull of the white dwarf. This produces a teardrop shape, caused by streams of gas flowing from the large star to the white dwarf. Ultimately, this will lead to the explosion of the dwarf in a so-called Type I supernova.
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Illustration of the teardrop-shaped companion being ‘sucked out’ by a white dwarf.
(image university of warwick / Mark Garlick) –
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Warwick
White dwarfs are stars that have used up their fuel. The matter from the star then falls in and when the dwarf was heavy enough, this will start nuclear fusion again in the core of the star. This happens in an explosive way and the star explodes in a supernova. But this can also happen when the star is too bright, when the white dwarf is part of a binary star, two stars that revolve around each other. The heavy dwarf then attracts matter from the lighter companion, causing the nuclear fusion to start explosively. Of the pair now discovered, the astronomers could only see the light from the companion star, which is much brighter than the white dwarf. But due to regular changes in the..
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