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At 3 thousand light-years from Earth, scientists discovered the
Scientists have discovered a binary system of about 3 thousand light-years, in which a small dead star periodically "takes" gas from its companion - a brown dwarf.
The found system belongs to the class of cataclysmic variables. In the case of them, we are talking about a white dwarf that absorbs the substance of its larger companion. The newfound system is unusual in that the companion of the white dwarf is a brown dwarf - an object that began to form as a star, but could not accrete the necessary mass to start hydrogen fusion reactions in the nucleus. Sometimes such objects are called "failed stars"; their mass value lies between the masses of gas giants and small stars.
In the newfound system, as indicated, a brown dwarf is about 10 times less massive than a white dwarf. It is noted that the data on the basis of which the discovery was made were obtained by the Kepler space telescope in 2016. Later this information was analyzed, and scientists discovered a system - in which, in a 30-day period, the dwarf nova sharply became 1,600 times brighter, then quickly faded and then gradually returned to normal brightness.
According to scientists, the detected brightness was produced by material rotating around a white dwarf in an accretion disk (the same thing - but on a much larger scale - occurs around supermassive black holes).
The found system belongs to the class of cataclysmic variables. In the case of them, we are talking about a white dwarf that absorbs the substance of its larger companion. The newfound system is unusual in that the companion of the white dwarf is a brown dwarf - an object that began to form as a star, but could not accrete the necessary mass to start hydrogen fusion reactions in the nucleus. Sometimes such objects are called "failed stars"; their mass value lies between the masses of gas giants and small stars.
In the newfound system, as indicated, a brown dwarf is about 10 times less massive than a white dwarf. It is noted that the data on the basis of which the discovery was made were obtained by the Kepler space telescope in 2016. Later this information was analyzed, and scientists discovered a system - in which, in a 30-day period, the dwarf nova sharply became 1,600 times brighter, then quickly faded and then gradually returned to normal brightness.
According to scientists, the detected brightness was produced by material rotating around a white dwarf in an accretion disk (the same thing - but on a much larger scale - occurs around supermassive black holes).