High school students identify an ultra-rare star
This newly-discovered variable is one of only seven of its kind known in our galaxy.
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Tau.Neutrino said:
High school students identify an ultra-rare starThis newly-discovered variable is one of only seven of its kind known in our galaxy.
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> Of those hundreds of thousands of variables catalogued in our galaxy, however, only seven belong to a class called Triple Mode high amplitude delta Scuti, or HADS, stars
delta Scuti stars are extremely common. But I haven’t heard of “triple mode high amplitude”
By the way, until very recently amateurs do a much better job of tracking the variations of variable stars than professional astronomers. One reason is that professional astronomers only look at a stellar object when the seeing is best – which is only for a couple of months each year. Amateurs can look at stars closer to the horizon, and this can cover up to nine months a year. To properly track variable stars you need observations over many months of the year.
“The delta Scuti stars reside near the point where the instability strip crosses the main sequence in the HR diagram. They are all short period stars, with individual periods lying in the range of 0.03 to 0.3 day.”
Which is why they’re extremely common.
By the way, note that Cepheids can also have single mode and two mode variants. Polaris is very unusual in being a Cepheid that doesn’t fall easily into either the single mode of two mode Cepheids. Perhaps the new star is the main sequence equivalent of Polaris.
Delta Scuti variables. “Because they are low amplitude variables, they will be challenging to visual and CCD observers alike”.
“Although CY Aquarii is classified as a high-amplitude star, it has a varying light curve which indicates the presence of secondary modes.”