Astronomers discover record-breaking stars as small as the Moon but heavier than the Sun - Texasnewstoday.com

Astronomers have discovered the smallest but largest White dwarf The stars I’ve seen so far.

According to a new study published in Nature on Thursday, “very special” stars are heavier than our Sun and are all packed into a relatively small body the same size as our Moon. .. It was formed when two not-so-large white dwarfs, who spent their lives as a pair orbiting each other, collided and merged together.

At the end of their lives, the majority of stars become white dwarfs. And, in addition to being essentially a smoldering corpse, it is one of the densest objects in the universe. Black holes and neutron stars.. In about 5 billion years, our Sun will eventually become a red giant before suffering the same fate.

“It may seem counterintuitive, but the little white dwarf happens to be heavier,” lead author Ilaria Caiazzo said in a statement. “This is due to the fact that white dwarfs lack nuclear fusion, which keeps normal stars against their own gravity, and instead their size is regulated by quantum mechanics.”

A highly magnetized dead star named ZTF J1901 + 1458 is relatively close to Earth, only about 130 million light-years away. It was discovered by the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF) at the Palomar Observatory at the California Institute of Technology.

When the two white dwarfs merged, they combined to form a new star. It weighs about 1.35 times the mass of our Sun and is the heaviest we have ever found. If either star had a slightly higher mass, the merger would have caused the following violent explosion: Supernova..

The white dwarf ZTFJ1901 + 1458 is approximately 2,670 miles in diameter and the moon is 2,174 miles in diameter. The white dwarf is depicted on the moon in this artistic expression. In reality, the white dwarf is in the constellation of the scrubbing brush 130 light-years away.

Giuseppe Parisi

The ZTF J1901 + 1458 also has an “extreme” magnetic field that is about one billion times stronger than the Sun, spinning rapidly and completing one revolution in just seven minutes. It takes about 27 days for the sun to rotate.

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With a diameter of 2,670 miles, it is known as the smallest white dwarf in the universe, over 400 miles. By comparison, the diameter of the moon is 2,174 miles.

“I caught this very interesting object that wasn’t big enough to explode,” says Caiazzo. “We are truly investigating how huge a white dwarf can be.”

So what’s next to the rare star?

Researchers believe that stars probably have a mass large enough to evolve. Neutron star, This is usually formed when a star with a much larger mass than the Sun explodes in a supernova. If their hypothesis is correct, it means that many of the neutron stars in the universe may have been formed in this previously unknown way.

“It’s so heavy and dense that in its nucleus electrons are captured by protons in the nucleus to form neutrons,” Caiazzo said. “The pressure from the electrons pushes against gravity, leaving the star intact, so the core collapses when enough electrons are removed.”

The fact that the stars are close to Earth and young (only about 100 million years or younger) means that similar stellar phenomena can occur more commonly in our own galaxies.

“Until now, we have not been able to systematically explore short-scale astronomical phenomena on this kind of scale. The results of these efforts are amazing,” said the first star found in all-sky images. Kevin Barge said.

But researchers say they are just getting started.

“There are many questions to address, such as the rate of white dwarf mergers in the galaxy. Is it enough to explain the number of Type Ia supernovae?” Caiazzo said. “How are the magnetic fields generated by these powerful events, and why are there such variations in magnetic field strength among the white dwarfs? The greatness of the white dwarfs born from the merger. Finding a group will help you answer all these questions and more. ”

Astronomers discover record-breaking stars as small as the Moon but heavier than the Sun

Source link Astronomers discover record-breaking stars as small as the Moon but heavier than the Sun

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2021-07-02 12:07:53Z
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