Stellar Zoo: Merging Of White Dwarfs In A Neon Haze

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Scientists discovered a completely new type of stellar object. Created during the merger of two white dwarfs it won't live for long but it will have a wild life.


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Image by Paco Silva from Pixabay

No matter how we try, the Universe always surprises us. And that’s exactly what it did with a very unusual star called J005311 that was hiding in the IRAS 00500+6713 nebula. You’ve never seen such a star. It was created by the merger of two white dwarfs, and surprisingly it didn’t fire off an Ia Supernova. Instead, an object, a bit of a stellar monster, was created and it shiners intensely in the x-ray part of the electromagnetic spectrum.

Lidia Oskinova from the Universität Potsdam and her team used the European space x-ray telescope XMM-Newton and pointed it at an object that was discovered in 2019. Even back then we knew it would be unique and quite frankly weird as stellar winds around the object are quite furious. But it was also too bright and massive to be a standard white dwarf.

Oskinova and her team are convinced that this is a new type of star that might have a short life but it is wild. It was most likely born out of a collision of two white dwarfs that for some unknown reason didn’t cause a supernova explosion. We predicted such objects such exist in our theories but it is also nice to found a real object that confirms our theories.

Based on our expectations the object is incredibly hot. Its temperature is somewhere around 200,000° Kelvin. And it is also very bright. As much as 40,000 Suns. The object also ejects mass at a speed of 16,000 kilometers per second and this stellar wind is fed by the fast rotation of the object and its intense magnetic field.

Another incredible thing is that the object J0005311 or the nebula that surrounds it doesn’t include large amounts of hydrogen or helium. But really, it’s not a surprise as it all was created during a collision of white dwarfs which themselves aren’t exactly full of these elements. The ominous tone of the object is only highlighted by the composition of the nebula as it is made mostly from neon.

So, what will be the fate of the object in the neon haze? Well, it will be wild and short-lived. The object is volatile, and it will continue to eject matter. And it will not take long. The scientists estimate that during the next 10,000 years – a blink in astronomical times – the object will collapse into a neutron star.

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