Astronomers Discover New Class of Pulsating Star

KentuckyFC writes "It doesn't happen very often but astronomers have discovered a new class of pulsating white dwarf. The work began last year when the Sloan Digital Sky Survey found a few exotic white dwarf stars with carbon atmospheres. A mathematical model of these stars showed that in some circumstances the dwarfs could pulsate as the carbon was cycled through the atmosphere by convection. Now a few days observation of one of these stars has shown that it does actually pulsate as predicted."

What is love?

Baby don't hurt me.
Don't hurt me.
No more.

Wait, that's Chris Kattan, a different kind of white dwarf star.

Re:What is love?

The inevitable and predictable jokes people make when the word "dwarf" comes up in some neutral context are sophomoric and insensitive.

We shouldn't belittle people for how they were born.

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Hey. Don't get short with me.

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Wait, that's Chris Kattan, a different kind of white dwarf star.

I think the word "pulsating" applies here as well.

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Wait, that's Chris Kattan, a different kind of white little person star.

There. Made it more PC.

Getting the public interested

Now all we need is a vibrating star and we're in business.

Pulsating White Dwarf...

Thats what THE LADIES call me!

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Pfff.

My user id says it all, mate...

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> Carbon dwarfs should be great throbbing balls of fire. Yep, pulsating stars.

Wow! You read the article?

Not again!

I quit WoW to get away from pulsating white dwarfs!

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You understand the reason they're pulsating? After dropping Thrud the Barbarian, there has been no stabilizing influence.

oh wow!

I wonder how this sort of star came about? I haven't read through the entire article (well, the one that's actually going in the scientific journal not the condensed version that's linked), but it seems really interesting.

Of course I also didn't know

Re:oh wow! Maybe it arose out of a steady

bang?

If there is a "white dwarf", is there a opposite, "black giant"? If these two commingled, would there be an undulating, cosmic orgas... umm, wait...

"A fly in the ointment"

From TFA:

Congratualtions to them but there is a potential fly in the ointment: what looks like a pulsating dwarf could actually be a binary system of two white dwarfs. Dufour is unfazed. He points out that the characteristics of the system are unique so either way, they've found a new class of something or other.

Since binary stars are a common phenomenon and what they are proposing is completely new, isn't it more likely that the less bizarre explanation is probably the right one [wikipedia.org]?

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Either way, it's a white dwarf with carbon in the atmosphere, which hasn't really been observed either, as the article mentions. It's pretty amazing and exciting, at least for this astronomer.

Re:"A fly in the ointment"

We've never seen a pulsating carbon convection star, but we've also never actually seen a binary white dwarf that looks like this. Both are highly complicated systems and neither is inherently more complex than the other.

And the first gets +1 cool, where the second gets a -1 redundant. That's at least as important as any other rating system right now.

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Since binary stars are a common phenomenon...

Maybe I misheard, but aren't they more common than single star systems such as ours?

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There's a saying, that 3 out of every 2 stars are in a binary star system.

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"They've found a new class of something or other."

Should have been the headline.

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they discovered nine of them.

... and the first seven dwarfs are named Doc, Grumpy, Happy, Sneezy, Bashful, Sleepy, and Dopey.

we're saving the smurf names for the blue dwarfs.

White dwarf pulsating power must be

measured in GimliHertz?

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Wait, we're still using THAT old system of measurement? What about BruenerHertz? They're much better.

personal ad

Once upon a time, back at Alma Mater U, the campus newspaper ran an ad
"Red giant seeks white dwarf for binary relationship." and gave astronomy professor [udel.edu] Harry Shipman's phone number.
Ever since then, ID has been required when placing personal ads.

pulsating white dwarf

I once dated a pulsating white dwarf, boy was she hot!

Ho hum, hooray!

Once we get to a certain level of molecular (atomical) understanding, I think we are able to recreate any 'model' of physical circumstances. Yet it must be done to be proven...