A strangely extraordinaire and uncommon “zombie star” has been discovered in the thick of a gas cloud, approximately 10,000 light-years away from Earth. The star has been spotted by scientists from the University of Bonn in Germany and the Russian Academy of Sciences, and it seems to be the creation of an impact between two white dwarfs.
The star has been named J005311 and seems to have been ascended from its cosmic tomb after two dead astronomical objects crashed one in another in the constellation known as Cassiopeia. The discoveries issued in the journal Nature unveils the nature of the unique zombie star and its unique features. The researchers identified the strange star utilizing evidence collected by NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) space telescope and later analyzed it using a telescope based at Russia’s Special Astrophysical Observatory.
When the star’s life ends, and all of its fuel has been used up, it transforms into a ‘white dwarf,’ a small, compressed, dead object, and it stays like this forever. However, the team of scientists from Bonn University analyzed the radiation produced by the zombie star and discovered that it had no hydrogen and no helium, usually existing in a white dwarf. Researchers think that what they have identified in the star’s strange diffusion is the product of a cosmic merging between two white dwarfs that orbited each other for billions of years.
Impact Between Two White Dwarfs Produced A “Zombie Star”
Gotz Gräfener, a co-author of the research, explained in a statement that this kind of occurrence is incredibly rare and that there probably aren’t even ten such stars in the Milky Way, but they’ve identified one of them. White dwarfs encounters usually happen in enormous stellar explosions, also known as supernovae. But this unique object, J005311, did not blow up; instead, it was brought back to life and started blazing again.
The star now brightens approximately 40,000 times more than the Sun, has a powerful magnetic field and its flood of stellar winds are circulating at 16,000 kilometers per second (9,950 mps). The object also burns at a temperature of around 200,000 degrees Celsius (360,000 degrees Fahrenheit).
However, even with its rebirth, death will be its ultimate fate. This incredible occurrence has only postponed its dissolution by a couple of thousand years. Its life will end again when its fuel is exhausted, and then, it will crash into a tiny star and explode.
Doris’s passion for writing started to take shape in college where she was editor-in-chief of the college newspaper. Even though she ended up working in IT for more than 7 years, she’s now back to what he always enjoyed doing. With a true passion for technology, Doris mostly covers tech-related topics.