The stripped core of a star that was 12 times as massive as the sun was discovered by chance during a stage of stellar evolution that lasts the blink of a cosmic eye.
An artist's impression of a stellar core once part of a massive star as its outer layers are stripped away.
Observing such a core in isolation could help astrophysicists better understand the nuclear processes that occur at the heart of stars and how stellar objects evolve.The exposed stellar core in question, a bright previously observed star dubbed Gamma Columbae . has a mass of between 4 and 5 times that of the sun.
"This is probably the most interesting factor of all, in terms of scientific outcome, because all the cores are hidden in the other stars and here we have a naked one, a stripped one, and that will leave a very particular signal in its pulsations," said Norbert Przybilla, head of the Institute for Astro- and Particle Physics at the University of Innsbruck and a co-author of the study,This led them to question what processes could have stripped γ Columbae of its outer layers reducing...
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