White dwarf (right) stripping mass from the brown dwarf. Credit: Rene Breton, University of Manchester.
Astronomers have detected a sub-stellar object that used to be a star, after being consumed by its white dwarf companion. An international team of astronomers made the discovery by observing a very faint binary system, J1433 730 light-years away. The system consists of a low-mass object – 60X the mass of Jupiter – in an extremely tight 78-min orbit around a white dwarf (the remnant of a star like our Sun).
Due to their close proximity, the white dwarf strips mass from its low-mass companion. This process has removed about 90% of the mass of the companion, turning it from a star into a brown dwarf...
Read More
Recent Comments