Astronomers have made an exciting discovery of four new white dwarf stars hidden “locally” on Earth, describing the find as a “surprise.”
A research team from the University of Warwick utilized the Hubble Space Telescope to identify a faint star in a double star system located just 65 light-years from our planet.
Each of the four newly discovered white dwarfs is accompanied by a larger, brighter red dwarf, which was previously obscured from view.
Dr. Mairi O’Brien, a researcher at Warwick, noted: “Isolated white dwarfs are typically easy to spot nearby, but these four stars weren’t visible at optical wavelengths due to their bright red dwarf companions masking their light.”
“This discovery highlights that even in our cosmic neighborhood, we can uncover unexpected phenomena if we observe using the right techniques and wavelengths.”
One of the binary systems, named G203-47, is now officially recognized as the ninth closest white dwarf to the Sun.
The Warwick team collaborated with astronomers from the University of Colorado Boulder to study four nearby star systems due to their “significant radial wobbles.”
This wobbling indicates the presence of a massive orbiting object.
Co-author Dr. David Wilson, a research assistant at the University of Colorado Boulder, explained that their findings showed some intriguing stellar activity.
For instance, the red dwarf in G 203-47 completes a rotation approximately every 100 days, while the white dwarf orbits itself every 14.9 days—indicating that they are not gravitationally synchronized.
“Interestingly, if G 203-47 had formed like other similar systems, it shouldn’t rotate so slowly,” Wilson added.
“This suggests that these binary systems possess distinct evolutionary histories.”
“Some systems, such as G 203-47, have experienced milder and shorter encounters, leading to this unusual state.”
Professor Pier-Emmanuel Tremblay from the University of Warwick mentioned that the research team believes there may be as many as nine to ten additional local binary systems yet to be uncovered.
“With more focused observations of red dwarfs, we are likely to encounter further surprises like this,” he concluded.
For further details, the survey results are available in the Royal Astronomical Society, external.
Source: www.bbc.co.uk