Category Astronomy/Space

Mukremin Kilic, OU astrophysicist, and team have discovered two detached, eclipsing double white dwarf binaries with orbital periods of 40 and 46 minutes, respectively. Only a handful of white dwarf binaries are know with orbital periods less than one hour in our galaxy and most were discovered by Kilic and colleagues. Credit: University of Oklahoma

Astrophysicists have discovered 2 detached, eclipsing double white dwarf binaries with orbital periods of 40 and 46 minutes, respectively. White dwarfs are the remnants of Sun-like stars, many of which are binaries. However, only a handful of white dwarf binaries are known with orbital periods less than one hour in the Milky Way – a galaxy made up of 200 billion stars – and most have been discovered by Kilic and his colleagues.

“Short-period wh...

A visualization of the Sun’s three-dimensional magnetic field. By tracing magnetic field lines at extremely high resolution, researchers highlight the inherent complexity of the Sun’s magnetic field and its intimate connection to visible emission from the solar corona. Credit: TACC/Predictive Science, Inc

Scientists have forecast the corona of the sun with Stampede2 supercomputer at The University of Texas at Austin’s Texas Advanced Computing Center (TACC) during the upcoming eclipse. The findings shed light on what the eclipse of the sun might look like Aug. 21 when it will be visible across much of the US, tracing a 70-mile-wide band across 14 states...

Image of the accretion disk: A snapshot of the binary star system before the violent supernova explosion blew it to pieces. This material relates to a paper that appeared in the 18 August 2017, issue of Science, published by AAAS. The paper, by S. Vennes at Astronomical Institute of Czech Academy of Sciences in Ondrejov, Czech Republic, and colleagues was titled, “An unusual white dwarf star may be a surviving remnant of a subluminous Type Ia supernova.”

Astronomers have identified a white dwarf star in our galaxy that may be the leftover remains of a recently discovered type of supernova. The properties of this unusual white dwarf, known as LP 40-365, may help scientists determine how such unusual supernovae are created, say Stephane Vennes and colleagues.

A common group of exploding star...

This is the GJ832 system.
Credit: Suman Satyal

Astrophysicists at the University of Texas at Arlington team investigated the star system Gliese 832 for additional exoplanets residing between the two currently known alien worlds in this system. Their computations revealed that an additional Earth-like planet with a dynamically stable configuration may be residing at 0.25 to 2.0 astronomical unit (AU) from the star. According to our calculations, this hypothetical alien world would probably have a mass between 1 to 15 Earth’s masses,” said the lead author Suman Satyal, UTA physics researcher, lecturer and laboratory supervisor.

“This is an important breakthrough demonstrating the possible existence of a potential new planet orbiting a star close to our own,” Weiss said. “The fact that Dr...