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posted by janrinok on Sunday January 08 2017, @04:05AM   Printer-friendly
from the for-some-value-of-nearby dept.

Astronomers at Calvin College in Michigan have predicted that the contact binary star system KIC 9832227 will merge and produce a "red nova" around 2022 (2022.2 ± 0.6):

Molnar's exploration into the star known as KIC 9832227 began back in 2013. He was attending an astronomy conference when fellow astronomer Karen Kinemuchi presented her study of the brightness changes of the star, which concluded with a question: Is it pulsing or is it a binary?

Also present at the conference was then Calvin College student Daniel Van Noord '14, Molnar's research assistant. He took the question as a personal challenge and made some observations of the star with the Calvin observatory. "He looked at how the color of the star correlated with brightness and determined it was definitely a binary," said Molnar. "In fact, he discovered it was actually a contact binary, in which the two stars share a common atmosphere, like two peanuts sharing a single shell. From there Dan determined a precise orbital period from Kinemuchi's Kepler satellite data (just under 11 hours) and was surprised to discover that the period was slightly less than that shown by earlier data" Molnar continued.

This result brought to mind work published by astronomer Romuald Tylenda, who had studied the observational archives to see how another star (V1309 Scorpii) had behaved before it exploded unexpectedly in 2008 and produced a red nova (a type of stellar explosion only recently recognized as distinct from other types). The pre-explosion record showed a contact binary with an orbital period decreasing at an accelerating rate. For Molnar, this pattern of orbital change was a "Rosetta stone" for interpreting the new data.

Upon observing the period change to continue through 2013 and 2014, Molnar presented orbital timing spanning 15 years at the January 2015 meeting of the American Astronomical Society, making the prediction that KIC 9832227 may be following in the footsteps of V1309 Scorpii. Before taking the hypothesis too seriously, though, one needed to rule out other, more mundane, interpretations of the period change. In the two years since that meeting, Molnar and his team have performed two strong observational tests of the alternative interpretations. First, spectroscopic observations ruled out the presence of a companion star with an orbital period greater than 15 years. Second, the rate of orbital period decrease of the past two years followed the prediction made in 2015 and now exceeds that shown by other contact binaries.

The prediction has been refined from an earlier estimate of 2018 to 2020. Illustrations.

PREDICTION OF A RED NOVA OUTBURST IN KIC 9832227

Related: KIC 9832227: a red nova precursor
Evolution of the stellar-merger red nova V1309 Scorpii: SED analysis


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  • (Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 08 2017, @04:13AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 08 2017, @04:13AM (#450939)

    We'll all be in Trump Death Camps by then.

    • (Score: 3, Funny) by tisI on Sunday January 08 2017, @04:25AM

      by tisI (5866) on Sunday January 08 2017, @04:25AM (#450941)

      I was thinking the next final solution would be to build a big wall around LA. Make them pay for it.
      Then make it a prison and wait for some guy named Snake McWhatever escape from it.

      Could be a box office hit.

      --
      "Suppose you were an idiot...and suppose you were a member of Congress...but I repeat myself."
  • (Score: 3, Interesting) by kanweg on Sunday January 08 2017, @10:38AM

    by kanweg (4737) on Sunday January 08 2017, @10:38AM (#450989)

    How bright will it be?

    How bright is the binary currently? What can we expect?

    Bert

    • (Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Sunday January 08 2017, @02:38PM

      by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday January 08 2017, @02:38PM (#451025) Journal

      It will go from mag 12.27 - 12.46 to as bright as mag 2, maybe even as bright as Polaris (about 1.98). Easily visible to the human eye.

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
      • (Score: 2) by captain normal on Sunday January 08 2017, @07:09PM

        by captain normal (2205) on Sunday January 08 2017, @07:09PM (#451130)

        I could find no mention (except the summary's "nearby" of how far away this binary is. If it's more than 2 AU, then it's likely already happened.

        --
        When life isn't going right, go left.
        • (Score: 3, Insightful) by aristarchus on Sunday January 08 2017, @07:30PM

          by aristarchus (2645) on Sunday January 08 2017, @07:30PM (#451135) Journal

          2 AU? For interstellar distances? What did you mean to say? (pretty sure any star is further than 2 AU!)

          • (Score: 2) by dry on Monday January 09 2017, @01:26AM

            by dry (223) on Monday January 09 2017, @01:26AM (#451271) Journal

            There's a star called the Sun that is only 1 AU away

            • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Monday January 09 2017, @01:35AM

              by aristarchus (2645) on Monday January 09 2017, @01:35AM (#451272) Journal

              Actually, the name of that star is "Sol". But yes, you are quite correct! So what I meant to say is that the commentor could not have meant 2 AU, because then ours would be a binary solar system, and quite probably headed for a violent death in a red nova!! Hypothetical conversation: "Haven't you noticed that Sol1 and Sol2 are slightly closer together than they were say, fifteen years ago? Yes, that would explain global warming, but really, that is going to be the least of our problems."

              • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 09 2017, @07:48AM

                by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 09 2017, @07:48AM (#451361)

                actually laughing out loud here, trying to be discreet and it's hard

                thanks aristarchus

              • (Score: 2) by dry on Wednesday January 11 2017, @03:10AM

                by dry (223) on Wednesday January 11 2017, @03:10AM (#452342) Journal

                I speak English, where the Sun is called the Sun. Just today I said to the wife, "nice to see the Sun". Even have a day of the week named after the Sun.

                • (Score: 2) by aristarchus on Wednesday January 11 2017, @04:23AM

                  by aristarchus (2645) on Wednesday January 11 2017, @04:23AM (#452359) Journal

                  You may speak English (or, properly, Anglishensprache), but obviously you do not speak "science". I suggest you ask Dr. Science! http://drscience.com/wordpress/ [drscience.com] Though it does look like he stopped posting in 2014. There are many suns, since "sun" is just a word for a star. You may think you are making a difference with capitalization, but it really doesn't help. The appellation would then depend on the locutioner's location for denotation to succeed! For instance, I you were on Proxima Centauri 3, then "the sun" would refer to the nearest star, in this case, Proxima Centauri. You see how confusing this could make things, since I am only reading you on the internets and have no idea of your temporal-spatial placement, and so I cannot be sure what you are saying, when talking to said spouse? (And before you bring it up, how am I supposed to be sure they do not speak English on Proxima Centauri 3?) So if you had just said "Sol", everything would be clear and I could rest assured that no red nova was in the offing.

        • (Score: 3, Informative) by takyon on Sunday January 08 2017, @08:23PM

          by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Sunday January 08 2017, @08:23PM (#451159) Journal

          This article did not exist when I wrote the summary:

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KIC_9832227 [wikipedia.org]

          then it's likely already happened.

          If you're trying to get me on some kind of reference frame semantics, I took careful notice of that when I wrote the headline.

          --
          [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 09 2017, @07:50AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 09 2017, @07:50AM (#451362)

            This is so exciting - thank you!

            Maybe our youngest will have a peek if they are rural and be inspired to greatness!

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 08 2017, @08:46PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 08 2017, @08:46PM (#451174)

          I assume you meant 2 parsecs?

          Anyway, wikipedia says about 1800 light-years, so yes, whatever we'll see has already happened.

          I'm not sure why you think that's worth commenting on -- yes, it's technically incorrect to say that the stars "will merge ... around 2022", but surely you don't think a few comments will somehow change it? Until such time as we can put humans at least a couple light-minutes from earth, and/or remote observatories some light-hours or -days out, humanity will inevitably continue to conflate times of occurrence and observation of astronomical events in all general discussion, because the difference simply doesn't matter; the only time of significance to the human race is the time of observation on Earth. Once we achieve sufficient spatial extent to make speaking of a single time a real problem, we'll learn to distinguish the location for which a particular observation time is relevant, and in doing so will distinguish it as an observation time, but no amount of criticizing stories today will make it happen sooner.

          • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 09 2017, @07:59AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday January 09 2017, @07:59AM (#451364)

            > particular observation time is relevant

            particular observation time and place are relevant

            (thanks for your post excellent thank you this is why soylent is quality - just one nitpick)

        • (Score: 1) by butthurt on Monday January 09 2017, @12:06AM

          by butthurt (6141) on Monday January 09 2017, @12:06AM (#451249) Journal

          If a star 2 AU away were to go nova, we wouldn't know it until ~16 minutes later.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 08 2017, @08:47PM

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 08 2017, @08:47PM (#451177)

      When I first read about it, I hoped it would be daytime visible -- that's -4 magnitude. Unfortunately, while I haven't noticed any specific predictions of this event's brightness, some calculations make it seem pretty unlikely.

      Now I see takyon has posted completely different numbers than I got (magnitude +2, or some 25 times dimmer), not sure where those came from, but assuming they're specific predictions for this binary, they should be trusted over my napkin-scratchings. Still, I present those scratchings for whatever they're worth:

      Other events of this type (M31-RV, V838 Monocerotis, M85 OT 2006-1) seem to have absolute magnitude peaking between -9 and -12. (Contrast with various types of supernovae at -15 to -20, and novae at -7.5 or -8.8.) Assuming -10 magnitude, at this star's distance of 550 parsecs (~46 Kessel runs) we'd see an apparent magnitude around -1.5; that would be brighter than Saturn, but dimmer than Jupiter, and compete with Sirius for brightest star in the sky. (That's without accounting for interstellar extinction, but I think that should be substantially less than +1 magnitude.)

      If takyon's numbers are right though (and again, I expect they probably are), I just don't get it. An apparent magnitude of +2 would mean an absolute magnitude of -6.7 -- that's dimmer than ordinary novae, and doesn't exactly put the "luminous" in "luminous red nova". Is this in a dust cloud with several magnitudes of extinction? or is the absolute magnitude really supposed to be that low? or is my distance of 550 parsecs (converted from wikipedia's "about 1800 light-years") way off?

  • (Score: 2) by wonkey_monkey on Monday January 09 2017, @09:43AM

    by wonkey_monkey (279) on Monday January 09 2017, @09:43AM (#451390) Homepage

    Red nova, red nova, send death rays all over.

    --
    systemd is Roko's Basilisk