How physicists determine this stuff is confounding but amazing.
Posted on 10/18/2021 1:56:23 PM PDT by NohSpinZone
Astronomers have used a planet-hunting satellite to see a white dwarf abruptly switching on and off for the first time.
The researchers led by Durham University, UK, used NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) to observe the unique phenomenon.
White dwarfs are what most stars become after they have burned off the hydrogen that fuels them. They are approximately the size of the Earth, but have a mass closer to that of the Sun.
The white dwarf observed by the team is known to be accreting, or feeding, from an orbiting companion star.
With the new observations astronomers saw it lose brightness in 30 minutes, a process only previously seen to occur in accreting white dwarfs over a period of several days to months.
The brightness of an accreting white dwarf is affected by the amount of surrounding material it feeds on so the researchers say something is interfering with its food supply.
(Excerpt) Read more at phys.org ...
How physicists determine this stuff is confounding but amazing.
They were visiting the Pumpkin Patch at Roloff Farms at the time they made the discovery.
😮
First sighting was of Danny DeVito but the second one was the genuine white dwarf.
Astrophages...
(hat tip to Project Hail Mary by Andy Weir)
So what does this mean, exactly? I see it means the star feeds off another star but ? black hole?
It really is amazing.
It’s just too bad that we can’t get close enough to really see what’s going on. Too many light years away.
Yeah. I took “Physics for Poets” in college...so I, a lawyer with a Master’s degree from the University of Chicago, am an expert. LOL!
Hey. If Jill Biden with the easiest doctorate ever, is a doctor, then so am I. I do have a Juris Doctor degree. Calling her a doctor is absurd. The word means something. As in a medical doctor.
Somehow an image of a farside cartoon conjures in my head
The truth is out there.
Great minds...that was my first thought too :D
Isn't that Morse Code for F¥€# Joe Biden?
Sounds like the White Dwarf star (racist?) is feeding off of the neighboring star, much like white liberals do off the working class Americans.
Movie about this White Dwarf star will be entitled “Liberal Parasites in Space”, coming to an election booth near you in November 2021 and 2022!!
They can’t pretend the Earth is round and these lights are other planetary bodies much longer.
“Astronomers see white dwarf ‘switch on and off’ for first time”
Astronomers see white dwarf ‘switch sex’ for first time
There fixed it
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