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    Astronomers find a ‘Cataclysmic’ Pair of Stars with the Shortest Orbit yet

    October 6, 2022, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    The huge sun-like star, left, looks like a blue balloon that turns orange as it’s being sucked into the tiny white dwarf’s orbit. The white dwarf looks like a mini-galaxy, with a blue center and orange rings. The background is black with tiny stars.
    Caption:An artist’s illustration shows a white dwarf (right) circling a larger, sun-like star (left) in an ultra-short orbit, forming a “cataclysmic” binary system.
    Credits:Credit: M.Weiss/Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian

    The stars circle each other every 51 minutes, confirming a decades-old prediction. Astronomers have discovered a stellar binary, or pair of stars, with an extremely short orbit, appearing to circle each other every 51 minutes. The system seems to be one of a rare class of binaries known as a ‘cataclysmic variable,’ in which a star similar to our sun orbits tightly around a white dwarf — a hot, dense core of a burned-out star.

    A cataclysmic variable occurs when the two stars draw close, over billions of years, causing the white dwarf to start acc...

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