. | . |
Polish astronomers attempt to solve pulsating blue stars puzzle by Brooks Hays Washington (UPI) Aug 9, 2017
A team of astronomers is trying to account for a mysterious new class of rapidly pulsating blue stars. Researchers first discovered the unusual pulsating stars -- detailed this week in the journal Nature Astronomy -- during a 2013 survey. Since then, the team of Polish scientists have returned to the Chilean desert several times to get a better grasp on what makes these stars tick. Unlike the sun, pulsating stars aren't stable. They periodically expand and contract -- growing and shrinking, brightening and dimming. Cepheids and RR Lyrae stars feature surface oscillation periods between a few hours and several hundred days. But the newly discovered class of stars features oscillation periods as brief as 20 to 40 minutes. In addition to their past paced pulsation, the new stars are hotter, more compact and bluer in color. "The objects are significantly bluer than main-sequence stars observed in the same fields, which indicates that all of them are hot stars," astronomer wrote in their newly published paper. In their new paper on the stellar anomalies, researchers at the University of Erlangen-Nurember suggest naming the new stars BLAPS, short for Blue Large-Amplitude Pulsators. Astronomers know more about BLAPS than they did in 2013, but the details of their origins and evolution remain murky. Astronomers originally hypothesized that BLAPS were a type of hot dwarf star. Hot dwarfs are older stars that rapidly pulsate as their thermonuclear cores convert helium into carbon. The sun's stellar fusion turns helium into hydrogen. Detailed analysis of several BLATS suggests the stars boast extremely hot temperatures comparable to hot dwarfs. But BLATS are significantly bigger than hot dwarfs. For now, why and how BLAPS came to be so bloated and oscillate so quickly remains a mystery -- a mystery to be solved by future investigations.
Berkeley CA (SPX) Aug 03, 2017 Now that scientists can detect the wiggly distortions in space-time created by the merger of massive black holes, they are setting their sights on the dynamics and aftermath of other cosmic duos that unify in catastrophic collisions. Working with an international team, scientists at the Department of Energy's Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have developed new computer ... read more Related Links Stellar Chemistry, The Universe And All Within It
|
|
The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2024 - Space Media Network. All websites are published in Australia and are solely subject to Australian law and governed by Fair Use principals for news reporting and research purposes. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA news reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. All articles labeled "by Staff Writers" include reports supplied to Space Media Network by industry news wires, PR agencies, corporate press officers and the like. Such articles are individually curated and edited by Space Media Network staff on the basis of the report's information value to our industry and professional readership. Advertising does not imply endorsement, agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) Statement Our advertisers use various cookies and the like to deliver the best ad banner available at one time. All network advertising suppliers have GDPR policies (Legitimate Interest) that conform with EU regulations for data collection. By using our websites you consent to cookie based advertising. If you do not agree with this then you must stop using the websites from May 25, 2018. Privacy Statement. Additional information can be found here at About Us. |