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posted by martyb on Thursday October 18 2018, @02:07AM   Printer-friendly
from the Grumpy-got-tired-of-hearing-Sneezy-and-KaPow! dept.

When white dwarf meets brown dwarf, pow!

In the 1600s, western astronomers were just emerging from centuries of medieval thought, when the heavens were thought to be unchanging. You can imagine their astonishment when – in July of 1670, in what had been a blank, dark sky – some observers witnessed a bright pinprick of light that appeared, faded, reappeared, and then disappeared entirely from view. At that time, astronomers called such an event a nova or new star. This one was located in front of the constellation Cygnus the Swan and so received the name Nova sub Capite Cygni (a New Star below the Head of the Swan). Modern astronomers have learned it wasn't a new star. It wasn't even a spectacular collision of two main-sequence stars, as announced in 2015. Instead, using data from the ALMA telescope in Chile, astronomers now believe the event was a collision between an aging white dwarf star and a brown dwarf (star with too little mass to ignite thermonuclear fusion and thereby shine as most stars do).

The object in question is now called CK Vulpeculae.

The new work is based on observations with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) in northern Chile. The astronomers studied the debris from this explosion, which takes the form of dual rings of dust and gas resembling an hourglass with a compact central object (see image at top). Sumner Starrfield of Arizona State University is a co-author on a paper published in the peer-reviewed journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. He said in a statement:

It now seems what was observed centuries ago was not what we would today describe as a classic 'nova.' Instead, it was the merger of two stellar objects, a white dwarf and a brown dwarf. When these two objects collided, they spilled out a cocktail of molecules and unusual isotopes, which gave us new insights into the nature of this object.

Brown and white dwarf stars.


Original Submission

 
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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday October 18 2018, @03:30AM (5 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday October 18 2018, @03:30AM (#750294) Journal

    You can read,

    Strictly speaking, he kan reed!

    Your assumption on the meaning of that sequence of letters may be unfounded.

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    Starting Score:    1  point
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    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 2) by Fluffeh on Thursday October 18 2018, @04:07AM (4 children)

    by Fluffeh (954) Subscriber Badge on Thursday October 18 2018, @04:07AM (#750310) Journal

    Strictly speaking, he kan reed!

    What, has Orktober [warhammer-community.com] permeated into SoylentNews as well now?

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by c0lo on Thursday October 18 2018, @04:14AM (3 children)

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday October 18 2018, @04:14AM (#750317) Journal

      I reckon the Novaember is more on the topic of the present story.
      But... let's not anticipate.

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Thursday October 18 2018, @06:51AM (2 children)

        by aristarchus (2645) on Thursday October 18 2018, @06:51AM (#750343) Journal

        Oh, how tiresome it becomes! Nova is new, novem is nine. Different words in Latin, which since it is the pater language of Romanian, um, you should have known?

        • (Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 18 2018, @09:22AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Thursday October 18 2018, @09:22AM (#750359)

          Oh, how tiresome it becomes!

          You not understanding the joke? Yes, that's tiresome.

        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by c0lo on Thursday October 18 2018, @09:41AM

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday October 18 2018, @09:41AM (#750361) Journal

          i'll defer the etymology to your vast erudition, magister.
          I'm only mocking a language that's not my own and it will never be, so what do I have to lose?
          So here, raise a glass of retsina in the honour of the terrible wrong Novæmber - I just sacrificed a word in two languages on the altar of Seth or whatever god of chaos you want

          Different words in Latin, which since it is the pater language of Romanian, um, you should have known?

          Maybe I should, maybe I shouldn't, how the heck would I know? I feel not bound to be correct or relevant.
          Not only it become tiresome after a while, but one also loses the ideation generative juices of being wrong on purpose and see what other angles this can reveal. The trick is to be conscious you are likely to be wrong and not linger in one kind of wrong for long.

          Remember, magister, the risk of answers - especially the right ones - they have big potential to kill. How many people can answer to "What do you want to eat next" after they just had a heavy meal?

          Besides, what makes you so sure "unadulterated reality" and "be true all the time" is what the humanity needs?
          "And ignorance is, first of all, this false identification of Reality with what each one of us appears to be or to possess." Think if the proposal of the hierophany as necessary for humans may not be actually valid, as "wrong" as it may be. Maybe the feeling of the mythological sacred is necessary for the human species?

          (When did you say was the last time you spend some winter months in Μετέωρα?)

          --
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford