A white dwarf is not your typical star type.
While mainstream stars like our Sun melt nuclear material in their corrugations to keep themselves from falling under their own weight, white dwarfs use an effect known as quantum degeneracy. The quantum nature of electrons means that no two electrons can have the same quantum state.
When you try to push electricity into the same state, they have a degeneracy stress that keeps the white dwarf from crouching.
However, there is a limit to the amount of mass that a white dwarf can have.
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar made a detailed calculation of this boundary in 1930 and found that if a white dwarf has a mass greater than about 1.4 Suns, gravity crushes the star to a neutron star or black hole.
But Chandrasekhar’s conclusion is based on a fairly simple model. One where the star is in symmetry and not orbiting. White fingers are truly more complex, especially when involved in accidents.
Binary white dwarfs are very common in the universe. Many stars like the Sun and red dwarfs are part of a binary system.
(ESA / XMM-Newton, L. Oskinova / Univ. Potsdam, Germany)
When these stars reach the end of their primary life they become the binary system of white dwarfs.
Over time their orbitals can decay, eventually catching both white dwarfs. The next thing will depend on the situation.
They can often explode as a nova or supernova, forming a remaining neutron star, but sometimes they can form something more unusual, such as a recent paper in Astronomy & Astronomy performances.
In 2019, an X-ray source was discovered that looked like a white dwarf but was too bright to be caused by a white dwarf. It has been suggested that the object could be an unstable union of two white dwarfs. In this new study, the team used the XMM-Newton X-ray telescope to capture an image of the object, as seen above.
They confirmed that the object has a mass greater than Chandrasekar’s limit. The super-Chandrasekar object is surrounded by a nebula left with high wind speeds.
The nebula is made up mostly of neon, seen as green in the image above. This is consistent with the object being formed by a white union. It appears to have a high rotation, which prevents the object from falling to a neutron star.
Eventually, this object will fall into a neutron star within the next 10,000 years. It seems to create a supernova in the process. Apparently a white dwarf can break Chandrasekhar’s border, but only for a while.
This article was originally published by Universe Today. Read the original article.