Astronomers Discover A Weird “Stellar Hybrid” — A Star Within A Star

An alien type of ‘ hybrid ’ star has been attain nigh 40 years since it was first theorize , but until now has been curiously hard to find .

In 1975 , renowned astrophysicist Kip Thorne , of the California Institute of Technology ( Caltech ) in Pasadena , Calif. , and Anna Żytkow , of the University of Cambridge , UK , meet a hypothesis on how a large fail ace could swallow its neutron star binary partner , thus becoming a very rarified eccentric of prima loan-blend , nicknamed a Thorne - Żytkow objective ( or TŻO ) . The neutron headliner — a dense straw of fast matter that was once a massive star long since drop dead supernova — would spiral into the cerise supergiant ’s core , interrupting normal unification processes .

grant to the Thorne - Żytkow hypothesis , after the two objects have merged , an overabundance of the ingredient rubidium , lithium and molybdenum will be beget by the hybrid . So astronomer have been on the lookout for maven in our galaxy , which is thought to moderate only a few twelve of these objective at any one time , with this specific chemical signature in their atmospheres .

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simulacrum : NASA / CORBIS / O’Neill .

Now , according to Emily Levesque of the University of Colorado Boulder and her squad , a bona fide TŻO has been discovered and their findings have been accepted for publication in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society Letters .

“ Studying these object is exciting because it typify a completely novel model of how starring interiors can work,”said Levesque . “ In these interior we also have a new way of producing backbreaking elements in our cosmos . You ’ve heard that everything is made of ‘ genius stuff and nonsense ’ — inside these stars we might now have a new means to make some of it . ”

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In January , Discovery News reported on Levesque ’s workand the recognition of several Thorne - Żytkow physical object nominee . Now , the team of astronomer have narrowed the selection down to a undivided red supergiant star in the Small Magellanic Cloud ( shout HV 2112 ) that has very similar chemical abundances and temperature to the Thorne - Żytkow simulation . The astronomers used the 6.5 - meter Magellan Clay telescope on Las Campanas , in Chile , to immortalise the starlight spectrum from HV 2112 .

“ I am extremely well-chosen that data-based confirmation of our theoretic prediction has started to emerge , ” said Żytkow , who is also a co - tec on this survey . “ Since Kip Thorne and I purpose our example of stars with neutron cores , people were not able to confute our work . If theory is sound , experimental ratification shows up preferably or later . So it was a matter of identification of a bright group of stars , get scope time and go with the project . ”

There are some subtle dispute between the observational results and theory , but , as Levesque ’s squad repoint out , stellar theory has advanced in the decade since Thorne and Żytkow ’s original work . “ We could , of course , be haywire . There are some small-scale inconsistencies between some of the details of what we found and what theory prognosticate , ” said co - investigator Philip Massey , of Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff , Ariz. “ But the theoretic predictions are quite old , and there have been a lot of improvements in the possibility since then . Hopefully our discovery will goad extra work on the theoretical side now . ”

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