The burnt-out star has one side composed of hydrogen and the other composed of helium. Astronomers have never seen anything like it.
The object is a white dwarf, an ancient core of a dead star. White dwarfs are small , clocking in at about the size of Earth, but with a mass similar to that of the Sun. Under their intense gravity, heavier elements sink towards the center of the dwarf, while lighter elements float nearer to its surface.The recently observed star’s lightest elements, helium and hydrogen, sit on the surface. But instead of mixing together, they take up opposite ends of the star.
The researchers followed up on the ZTF observations using the CHIMERA instrument at the Palomar Observatory and the HiPERCAM instrument on the Gran Telescopio Canarias. Observations of the dwarf using a spectrograph at the Keck Observatory revealed that helium and hydrogen appeared to be present on opposite sides of the object.An animation of the white dwarf nicknamed Janus, which has helium on one side and hydrogen on the other.
“We don’t know which of these theories are correct, but we can’t think of any other way to explain the asymmetric sides without magnetic fields,” Fuller said in the same release.Exactly how the magnetic fields are causing Janus’s juxtaposition is not certain, but observations of other magnetized white dwarfs may clarify things.
South Africa Latest News, South Africa Headlines
Similar News:You can also read news stories similar to this one that we have collected from other news sources.
In a world first, astronomers discover 'mind-blowing' two-faced starOne side of a newly-discovered white dwarf star, dubbed Janus after the two-faced Roman god of transition, is composed of helium and the other of hydrogen.
Read more »
Astronomers discover mysterious 'Trojan' planets that share the same orbitA distant Jupiter-size planet could have the shattered remains of a smaller sibling in its tow.
Read more »
Planets might have 'siblings,' astronomers findA cloud of debris is seemingly orbiting around a star in the same path as another planet, in the first evidence of two exoplanets sharing an orbit.
Read more »
How astronomers traced a puzzling signal to a lunchtime mistakeThe unusual radio wave turned out to have a rather mundane Earthly origin. But the puzzle wasn't easy to solve.
Read more »
TikTok’s Takedown of a Two-Faced NYC PlayboyWho is Kyle Deschanel? According to a member of an Orthodox Jewish community in Lakewood, New Jersey, who spoke to The Daily Beast on the condition of anonymity, “Kyle Deschanel” is actually Aryeh Dodelson, a recently divorced rabbi.
Read more »
Two-faced star seems to have one hydrogen side and one helium sideA strange star more than 1300 light years away appears to have two sides with completely different compositions, and astronomers aren’t sure how it ended up that way
Read more »