Category Astronomy/Space

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...