A binary star system was confirmed with the shortest period in which a non-planet star orbits a companion star every 51 minutes.
According to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), a research team led by Dr. Kevin Burge, ‘Papalardo Fellow’ in the Department of Physics of the American University, the result of the analysis of the binary system ‘ZTF J1813+4251’ in the constellation Hercules about 3,000 light years from Earth, and it was published in the journal Nature.
The research team analyzed this binary system as a ‘cataclysmic variable’. A catastrophic variable star is a binary system where two stars approach each other over billions of years and a white dwarf, which has reached the final stage of stellar evolution, absorbs material from another star and rapidly energizes.
ZTF J1813+4251 has an orbital period of just 51 minutes, making it the shortest catastrophic variable star discovered to date.
The research team found ZTF J1813+4251 in observational data collected by the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), a wide-area astronomical observatory at the Paloma Observatory in California. From the ZTF data, which recorded changes in luminosity by day, month, and year by taking more than 1,000 pictures of about 1 billion stars, first, 1 million stars showing light changes in an hourly cycle are selected and then manually processed to find ZTF J1813+ 4251.
The research team then confirmed the diameter, mass, and orbital period of the two stars using the WM Kek Observatory in Hawaii and the Large Canary Telescope (GTC) in La Palma, Spain.
It was observed that the size and mass of a white dwarf was about one hundredth of the Sun, and the companion star was about one tenth the size and mass of the Sun, orbiting the white dwarf on a cycle of 51 minutes.
The research team concluded that ZTF J1813+4251 is in transition through computer simulations based on these specific data.
A sun-like companion orbiting a white dwarf orbiting a white dwarf is said to provide hydrogen, and is said to be in a transition phase when only the helium nucleus remains. The two stars are predicted to grow closer together, and after about 70 million years, their orbital period will shorten to 18 minutes and then begin to move away again.
This was predicted by astronomers about 30 years ago, but this is the first time a catastrophic transition transition has actually been observed, the team said.
Dr said. Burge, “It’s a rare case of a celestial body transitioning from hydrogen to helium accretion. It’s been happening, but this observation put an end to it,” he said.
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