Merging of two white dwarf stars (Artist’s impression)
Merging of two white dwarf stars (Artist's impression) - Astronomers from the Universities of Tübingen and Potsdam have discovered a new type of star. While hunting for "hot stars" with the Large Binocular Telescope in Arizona, the team came across stars with unusual properties. While normal stellar surfaces are composed of hydrogen and helium, these stars, found under the direction of Professor Klaus Werner of the University of Tübingen, are covered in carbon and oxygen - the ash of a helium nuclear fusion. The exotic composition is all the more puzzling because the temperatures and diameters of the stars indicate that helium nuclei continue to fuse inside them. The results have been published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. The typical life cycle of a star like our Sun begins with the nuclear fusion of hydrogen into helium. Then, deep inside the star, a nuclear reaction begins that converts helium into carbon and oxygen.
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