Tag: white dwarf
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Hubble observes dead star devouring Pluto-like object
With help from NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope in low-Earth orbit, scientists recently observed a Pluto-like object being “eaten” by its host star. Hubble’s unique sensitivity to ultraviolet light allowed it to study the planetary system, which lies around 260 light-years away from Earth. The hungry star is a white dwarf — the dense, stellar core…
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Using Hubble, researchers measure the mass of a single white dwarf for the first time
Of the trillions of stars scattered throughout the universe, one of the most common are the white dwarfs, which are the dormant, burned out, and leftover cores of low/medium mass stars. For decades, scientists have only measured the masses of white dwarfs within binary star systems. While these measurements provide insight into the true masses…
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First possible “survivor” planet orbiting a white dwarf seen via NASA telescopes
A potential planet… where no planet should be. An international team of astronomers utilizing NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite and data obtained from the now-retired Spitzer space telescope have reported an astounding potential discovery of a surviving planet closely orbiting a white dwarf. So what’s the big deal? Scientists have found many exoplanets in close…
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100 years later, researchers prove Einstein right about starlight
Starlight bends around massive objects in a phenomenon known as gravitational lensing (photo courtesy of NASA/ESA) Albert Einstein predicted that starlight could bend and brighten when a faraway star crossed paths with a closer space body, but he never lived to see the day where it could actually happen. That day has come for international…