Weird new star type pulses on only one side

Space.com ^ | Elizabeth Howell

[BenLurkin]

Astronomers have finally found something they have spent decades searching for: a teardrop-shaped star that pulsates on only one side.

Citizen scientists helped the discovery team find the strangely lopsided star, which is known as HD74423, in data gathered by NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS). The star is about 1.7 times the mass of Earth's sun, and scientists determined that HD74423's weird pulsing is caused by a second, smaller star.

"I've been looking for a star like this for nearly 40 years, and now we have finally found one," study co-author Don Kurtz, an astronomer at the University of Central Lancashire in the U.K., said in a statement released by the University of Sydney, where Kurtz is temporarily based.

Pulses are nothing new to astronomers; even our own sun's surface fluctuates. But until now, every star's pulses have been visible around the entire surface. That's not the case for HD74423. That turns out to be because the star is a binary star, accompanied by a red dwarf star that is much smaller than our own sun. As the red dwarf whips around its larger companion every two days, its gravity pulls on HD74423. This tug distorts the surface of the larger star into a teardrop shape, also distorting the oscillations.

TESS was able to observe variations in the star's brightness during this distortion. The data was posted on the crowdsourcing website Planet Hunters TESS, where citizen scientists noticed that something weird was happening. Often, fluctuations in a star's light can be traced to a planet crossing across the face of that star — this is the entire premise of the TESS mission. Such fluctuations, however, may also stem from stellar activity, as in the case of HD74423.

[P.O.E.]

I've been looking for a squirrel whose left side legs are twice as long as the right side legs

You have to look for mountain squirrels who go around the mountain clockwise all the time.

[captain_dave]

More evidence supporting the Electric Universe theory of cosmology (see YouTube channel ThunderboltsProject)

[bert]

after 40 years looking and fearing his own death, he found what he was looking for. /s

[dp0622]

Any star that my ex is living on is the death Star

[SuperLuminal]

My wife had a similar problem with her heart a few years ago... It got cured by the cardiologist putting/hanging a small device inside her chest... With everything cured, the device comes out next August...

Also, I stopped watch so many reruns of Red Dwarf as well... So, no more pull from the Firestick on the TV... I'll have to discus this with her cardiologists...

[BenLurkin]

Glad to here she is okay. best wishes to you both.

[MortMan]

The Grinch can fix lights that don’t light on one side...

[Right Wing Assault]

You have to look for mountain squirrels who go around the mountain clockwise all the time.

Thanks for the tip! No wonder I could found any. There are no mountains near me!

[SunkenCiv]

I propose the name "Wozzat Star" for this stellar type.

[SunkenCiv]

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