{"id":12631,"date":"2020-01-26T12:56:41","date_gmt":"2020-01-26T07:56:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/?p=12631"},"modified":"2020-01-26T12:56:41","modified_gmt":"2020-01-26T07:56:41","slug":"vampire-star-discovered-by-scientists","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/archives\/12631","title":{"rendered":"‘Vampire’ star discovered by scientists"},"content":{"rendered":"

The V445, which is found in the constellation of Puppies, has been sucking in gas from a neighboring star, increasing the level of light it emits by 250 times.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is thought that the double star system could have a link to exploding stars known as Type Ia supernovae – critical for studies of dark energy, a hypothetical concept designed to explain the rate of expansion of the universe.<\/span><\/p>\n

V445 Puppis is the first nova discovered that appears to have no hydrogen, according to a team of experts, including several British scientists from the Universities of Warwick and Manchester.<\/span><\/p>\n

Type Ia supernovae are thought to result from the explosions of white dwarfs, super-dense dead stars about the size of the Earth which were once the core of stars like the Sun and whose outer layers have been lost into space.<\/span><\/p>\n

One defining characteristic of Type Ia supernovae is the lack of evidence for hydrogen in the light they produce., even though hydrogen is the most common chemical element in the Universe.<\/span><\/p>\n

Such supernovae most likely arise in systems composed of two stars, one of them being a white dwarf. When such white dwarfs, acting as “stellar vampires” that suck matter from their companion, become too heavy, they become unstable and explode.<\/span><\/p>\n

Dr Danny Steeghs, from the University of Warwick, one of the key team members and co-author of the paper, said: “This is critical, as we know that Type Ia supernovae lack hydrogen and the companion star in V445 Pup fits this nicely by also lacking hydrogen, instead dumping mainly helium gas onto the white dwarf.”<\/span><\/p>\n

“The incredible detail that we can see on such small scales is only possible thanks to the adaptive optics technology available on large ground-based telescopes.<\/span><\/p>\n

The team of astronomers used a special optics instrument to obtain very sharp images of V445 Puppis over a time span of two years following its November 2000 outburst<\/span><\/p>\n

Dr Patrick Woudt, from the University of Cape Town and lead author of the paper reporting the results, which were published in Astrophysical Journal, said: “One of the major problems in modern astrophysics is the fact that we still do not know exactly what kinds of stellar system explode as a Type Ia supernova.<\/span><\/p>\n

“As these supernovae play a crucial role in showing that the Universe’ expansion is currently accelerating, pushed by a mysterious dark energy, it is rather embarrassing.<\/span><\/p>\n

“Whether V445 Puppis will eventually explode as a supernova, or if the current nova outburst has pre-empted that pathway by ejecting too much matter back into space is still unclear. But we have here a pretty good suspect for a future Type Ia supernova.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Co author Dr Tim O’Brien, of The University of Manchester’s Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics, said: “As the white dwarf feeds on its companion, the captured gas accumulates on its surface until thermonuclear reactions begin, causing a massive explosion which ejects matter out into space at phenomenal speeds.”<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The V445, which is found in the constellation of Puppies, has been sucking in gas from a neighboring star, increasing the level of light it emits by 250 times. It is thought that the double star system could have a link to exploding stars known as Type Ia supernovae – critical for studies of dark […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":12632,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31,16,1416],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-technology","category-uk"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12631"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12631\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12633,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12631\/revisions\/12633"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12632"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vosa.tv\/eng\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}