{"id":9688,"date":"2025-09-11T06:16:28","date_gmt":"2025-09-11T10:16:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/?p=9688"},"modified":"2025-09-11T06:16:28","modified_gmt":"2025-09-11T10:16:28","slug":"hungry-star-is-eating-its-cosmic-twin-at-rate-never-seen-before","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/?p=9688","title":{"rendered":"Hungry Star Is Eating Its Cosmic Twin at Rate Never Seen Before"},"content":{"rendered":"
Double star V Sagittae – 10,000 light years from earth – is burning bright because greedy white dwarf is gorging on its larger twin<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

A greedy white dwarf star not far from Earth is devouring its closest celestial companion at a rate never seen before, space scientists have discovered.<\/p>\n

Their study<\/a> found the double star, named V Sagittae, is burning unusually bright as the super-dense white dwarf is gorging on its larger twin in a feeding frenzy.<\/p>\n

Experts think the stars are locked in an extraterrestrial tango as they orbit each other every 12.3 hours, gradually pulling each other closer.<\/p>\n

They say it could cause a massive explosion so bright it would be seen by the naked eye from Earth, some 10,000 lightyears away.<\/p>\n

The findings were made by an international team of astronomers involving Professor Phil Charles from University of Southampton, led by Dr Pasi Hakala from the University of Turku in Finland with Dr Pablo Rodr\u00edguez Gil from the Spanish Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias and University of La Laguna.<\/p>\n

Southampton\u2019s Professor Charles said their results crack a mystery about the star pair which has perplexed astronomers for a century.<\/p>\n

He added: “V Sagittae is no ordinary star system \u2013 it’s the brightest of its kind and has baffled experts since it was first discovered in 1902.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur study shows that this extreme brightness is down to the white dwarf sucking the life out of its companion star, using the accreted matter to turn it into a blazing inferno.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a process so intense that it’s going thermonuclear on the white dwarf\u2019s surface, shining like a beacon in the night sky.\u201d<\/p>\n

The new study was published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Researchers captured the cosmic carnage using the powerful European Southern Observatory\u2019s Very Large Telescope in Chile \u2013 and made another discovery.<\/p>\n

They found a ring of gas, like a giant halo, is encircling both stars, a consequence of the huge amounts of energy being generated by the hungry white dwarf.<\/p>\n

This unexpected ring, formed from the debris of the messy feast, gives us a clue that could change what we know about how stars live and die, said lead author Dr Pasi Hakala from the University of Turku.<\/p>\n

He added: \u201cThe white dwarf cannot consume all the mass being transferred from its hot star twin, so it creates this bright cosmic ring.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe speed at which this doomed stellar system is lurching wildly, likely due to the extreme brightness, is a frantic sign of its imminent, violent end.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dr Rodr\u00edguez-Gil from Spain\u2019s Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias added: \u201cThe matter accumulating on the white dwarf is likely to produce a nova outburst in the coming years, during which V Sagittae would become visible with the naked eye.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut when the two stars finally smash into each other and explode, this would be a supernova explosion so bright it\u2019ll be visible from Earth even in the daytime.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A greedy white dwarf star not far from Earth is devouring its closest celestial companion at a rate never seen before, space scientists have discovered. Their study found the double star, named V Sagittae, is burning unusually bright as the super-dense white dwarf is gorging on its larger twin in a feeding frenzy. Experts think…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":71,"featured_media":9690,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/mediasvc.eurekalert.org\/Api\/v1\/Multimedia\/4973af61-c5f0-4676-9581-ab7110342a9c\/Rendition\/low-res\/Content\/Public","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[216],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-discovery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/71"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=9688"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9691,"href":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9688\/revisions\/9691"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/9690"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=9688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=9688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spaceandplanetarynewswire.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=9688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}