File:Hubble discovers hydrogen-burning white dwarfs enjoying slow ageing (51443200959).jpg
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editDescriptionHubble discovers hydrogen-burning white dwarfs enjoying slow ageing (51443200959).jpg |
Could dying stars hold the secret to looking younger? New evidence from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope suggests that white dwarfs could continue to burn hydrogen in the final stages of their lives, causing them to appear more youthful than they actually are. This discovery could have consequences for how astronomers measure the ages of star clusters. The prevalent view of white dwarfs as inert, slowly cooling stars has been challenged by observations from the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope. An international group of astronomers have discovered the first evidence that white dwarfs can slow down their rate of ageing by burning hydrogen on their surface. “We have found the first observational evidence that white dwarfs can still undergo stable thermonuclear activity,” explained Jianxing Chen of the Alma Mater Studiorum Università di Bologna and the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics, who led this research. “This was quite a surprise, as it is at odds with what is commonly believed.” White dwarfs are the slowly cooling stars which have cast off their outer layers during the last stages of their lives. They are common objects in the cosmos; roughly 98% of all the stars in the Universe will ultimately end up as white dwarfs, including our own Sun. Studying these cooling stages helps astronomers understand not only white dwarfs, but also their earlier stages as well. To investigate the physics underpinning white dwarf evolution, astronomers compared cooling white dwarfs in two massive collections of stars: the globular clusters M3 and M13. These two clusters share many physical properties such as age and metallicity but the populations of stars which will eventually give rise to white dwarfs are different. In particular, the overall colour of stars at an evolutionary stage known as the Horizontal Branch are bluer in M13, indicating a population of hotter stars. This makes M3 and M13 together a perfect natural laboratory in which to test how different populations of white dwarfs cool. “The superb quality of our Hubble observations provided us with a full view of the stellar populations of the two globular clusters,” continued Chen. “This allowed us to really contrast how stars evolve in M3 and M13.” Using Hubble’s Wide Field Camera 3 the team observed M3 and M13 at near-ultraviolet wavelengths, allowing them to compare more than 700 white dwarfs in the two clusters. They found that M3 contains standard white dwarfs which are simply cooling stellar cores. M13, on the other hand, contains two populations of white dwarfs: standard white dwarfs and those which have managed to hold on to an outer envelope of hydrogen, allowing them to burn for longer and hence cool more slowly. Comparing their results with computer simulations of stellar evolution in M13, the researchers were able to show that roughly 70% of the white dwarfs in M13 are burning hydrogen on their surfaces, slowing down the rate at which they are cooling. This discovery could have consequences for how astronomers measure the ages of stars in the Milky Way. The evolution of white dwarfs has previously been modelled as a predictable cooling process. This relatively straightforward relationship between age and temperature has led astronomers to use the white dwarf cooling rate as a natural clock to determine the ages of star clusters, particularly globular and open clusters. However, white dwarfs burning hydrogen could cause these age estimates to be inaccurate by as much as 1 billion years. Credits: ESA/Hubble & NASA, G. Piotto et al.; <a href="https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" rel="noreferrer nofollow">CC BY 4.0</a> |
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Source | Hubble discovers hydrogen-burning white dwarfs enjoying slow ageing |
Author | European Space Agency |
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This image was originally posted to Flickr by europeanspaceagency at https://flickr.com/photos/37472264@N04/51443200959. It was reviewed on 13 June 2022 by FlickreviewR 2 and was confirmed to be licensed under the terms of the cc-by-2.0. |
13 June 2022
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Date and time of data generation | 18:00, 6 September 2022 |
Short title | Hubble’s Views of M13 (2010) and M3 (2019) |
Credit/Provider | ESA/Hubble & NASA, G. Piotto et |
Source | ESA/Hubble |
Publisher | ESA/Hubble |
Usage terms |
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JPEG file comment | To investigate the physics underpinning white dwarf evolution, astronomers compared cooling white dwarfs in two massive collections of stars: the globular clusters M3 and M13. These two clusters share many physical properties such as age and metallicity but the populations of stars which will eventually give rise to white dwarfs are different. This makes M3 and M13 together a perfect natural laboratory in which to test how different populations of white dwarfs cool. |
Orientation | Normal |
Horizontal resolution | 72 dpi |
Vertical resolution | 72 dpi |
Software used | Adobe Photoshop 22.4 (Windows) |
File change date and time | 19:07, 21 August 2021 |
Y and C positioning | Centered |
Exif version | 2.32 |
Date and time of digitizing | 19:04, 21 August 2021 |
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Supported Flashpix version | 1 |
Color space | sRGB |
IIM version | 4 |
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Height | 3,116 px |
Width | 6,182 px |
Pixel composition | RGB |
Number of components | 3 |
Contact information |
ESA Office, Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Dr Baltimore, MD, 21218 United States |
Type of media | Collage |
Date metadata was last modified | 21:07, 21 August 2021 |
Unique ID of original document | xmp.did:be09bcff-d104-2b42-ab66-ba7135cbb411 |