R Coronae Borealis tagged posts

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...