Bizarre Star Could be the Result of Two White Dwarfs Merging Together

Stars live and die on epic time scales. Tens of millions of years, hundreds of millions of years, even billions of years or longer. Maybe the only thing that surpasses that epicness is when two dead stars join together and come back to life.

more…

Tau.Neutrino said:

Bizarre Star Could be the Result of Two White Dwarfs Merging Together

Stars live and die on epic time scales. Tens of millions of years, hundreds of millions of years, even billions of years or longer. Maybe the only thing that surpasses that epicness is when two dead stars join together and come back to life.

more…

Can such a thing exist? Because red giant occurs before white dwarf, merger of red giant (or AGB star) and white dwarf would have to occur, which negates the possibility of a binary white dwarf close enough to merge?

mollwollfumble said:

Tau.Neutrino said:

Bizarre Star Could be the Result of Two White Dwarfs Merging Together

Stars live and die on epic time scales. Tens of millions of years, hundreds of millions of years, even billions of years or longer. Maybe the only thing that surpasses that epicness is when two dead stars join together and come back to life.

more…

Can such a thing exist? Because red giant occurs before white dwarf, merger of red giant (or AGB star) and white dwarf would have to occur, which negates the possibility of a binary white dwarf close enough to merge?

> The Russian astronomers saw a nebula with a star in the center, as usual, but the star emitted no visible light. Instead, it emitted mostly infrared light. This was highly unusual.

Actually, it shouldn’t be all that rare. I can see several possible explanations. One possibility is that the central is a neutron star rather than a white dwarf, still so young that it’s still hanging onto the planetary nebula that was around it at its birth. A second possibility, and one that seems more likely to me, is that what we’re seeing is the merger of two red dwarfs, or to put it another way, the aftermath of a collision between two red dwarfs.