{"id":412337,"date":"2025-09-10T05:25:17","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T05:25:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/412337\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T05:25:17","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T05:25:17","slug":"scientists-shocked-by-greedy-white-dwarf-star-devouring-its-twin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/412337\/","title":{"rendered":"Scientists shocked by \u2018greedy\u2019 white dwarf star devouring its twin"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Scientists have discovered a “greedy” white dwarf<\/a> star that is \u201cgoing thermonuclear\u201d as it devours its twin at an unprecedented rate.<\/p>\n

An international team of astronomers<\/a> found that the double star, V Sagittae, is blazing strongly as it consumes its celestial neighbour not far from Earth.<\/a><\/p>\n

A University of Southampton spokesperson said the study found the star is \u201cburning unusually bright as the super-dense white dwarf<\/a> is gorging on its larger twin in a feeding frenzy\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cExperts think the stars are locked in an extraterrestrial tango as they orbit each other every 12.3 hours, gradually pulling each other closer.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey say it could cause a massive explosion so bright it would be seen by the naked eye from Earth<\/a>, some 10,000 light-years away.\u201d<\/p>\n

Professor Phil Charles, from Hampshire University, said that the images captured using the powerful European Southern Observatory\u2019s Very Large Telescope in Chile had solved a mystery about the star pair, which had puzzled astronomers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

The double star V Sagittae (University of Southampton\/PA Wire)<\/p>\n

\u201cV Sagittae is no ordinary star system \u2013 it\u2019s the brightest of its kind and has baffled experts since it was first discovered in 1902,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

\u201cOur study shows that this extreme brightness is down to the white dwarf sucking the life out of its companion star, using the accreted matter to turn it into a blazing inferno.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a process so intense that it\u2019s going thermonuclear on the white dwarf\u2019s surface, shining like a beacon in the night sky.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr Pasi Hakala, from the University of Turku, Finland, who led the study published in the Monthly Notices Of The Royal Astronomical Society, said that the team had also found a ring of gas, like a giant halo, encircling both stars, which had been created by the huge amounts of energy being generated by the hungry white dwarf.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

open image in gallery<\/p>\n

The images were captured at the European Southern Observatory (ESO) in northern Chile (Getty)<\/p>\n

He explained: \u201cThe white dwarf cannot consume all the mass being transferred from its hot star twin, so it creates this bright cosmic ring.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe speed at which this doomed stellar system is lurching wildly, likely due to the extreme brightness, is a frantic sign of its imminent, violent end.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr Pablo Rodriguez-Gil, from Spain\u2019s Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, added: \u201cThe matter accumulating on the white dwarf is likely to produce a nova outburst in the coming years, during which V Sagittae would become visible with the naked eye.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut when the two stars finally smash into each other and explode, this would be a supernova explosion so bright it\u2019ll be visible from Earth even in the daytime.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Your support helps us to tell the story From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412338,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3844],"tags":[70,413,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-412337","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-science","9":"tag-space","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115178342771643502","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412337","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412337"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412337\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412338"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412337"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412337"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412337"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}