Red novel created by joining two stars

2011/01/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Astronomia

Astronomers at the Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center in Poland have seen for the first time how two stars gather after spiral dancing and create a single star. The observations made between 2001 and 2008 have allowed obtaining information that can be useful to understand the creation of red novas.

Most novas are blue and formed by exploiting the material of white dwarfs. But astronomers have not been able to discover how red novas occur. In 2002 we found the best-known red novel of all time, called V838 Monocerotis -- as can be seen in the image above. Six years later, the red novel V1309 Scorpii appeared in the Milky Way, whose location allowed astronomers who, within the OGLE Optical Gravitational Lensing Experimental project, gravitational Lensing Experimental project. Analyzing the data collected between 2001 and 2008, they were able to investigate the process of creating the red novel.

In fact, V1309 Scorpii originated from merging a contact binary. In this type of binary systems, two stars spin each other so close that they touch each other. At first they revolved around 1.4 days, representing a kind of spiral. But that time was shortening until two stars merge and explode. Thus the red novel was born.