Powerful Explosion is a Taste of What’s to Come
Submit on Thursday, July 20th, 2006 02:16
Artist illustration of a star and white dwarf. Image credit: CfAClick to enlarge
Earlier this year, astronomers watched a nova explosion blast off the surface of a white dwarf star in the system RS Ophiuchi. Located 5,000 light-years from Earth, RS Ophiuchi consists of a white dwarf and a red giant star locked in orbit – the white dwarf might actually be orbiting within the envelope of the red giant. But this nova was just the taste of what’s to come. The white dwarf is drawing material away from the red giant, and it will eventually gather enough mass to explode as a supernova.
This entry was posted on Thursday, July 20th, 2006 at 2:16 am and is filed under Astronomy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
