Super dense dead star warps light of stellar companion

[Jazzy]

NASA's planet-hunting Kepler space telescope has witnessed an ultra dense dead star bending the light of its larger companion, marking one of the first times this phenomenon has been observed in a two-star system.



Kepler detected a large drop in the brightness of a red dwarf star called KOI-256, leading astronomers to believe initially that a Jupiter-size exoplanet had crossed its face.



But additional observations by California's Palomar Observatory revealed a wobble in the red dwarf's movements too large to have been caused by the gravitational tug of a planet. The researchers then realized that the brightness dip resulted when a burnt-out stellar core called a white dwarf passed behind the red dwarf, reducing the overall luminosity of the two-star system.



This white dwarf is about the size of Earth but has the mass of the sun, study lead author Phil Muirhead, of Caltech in Pasadena, said in a statement. It's so hefty that the red dwarf, though larger in physical size, is circling around the white dwarf. [White Dwarf Bends Companion's Light (Video)]



The researchers then took another look at the Kepler data and found something surprising. The telescope had picked up minuscule brightness fluctuations caused when the white dwarf passed in front of its companion.



The white dwarf's massive gravity was bending the red dwarf's light in a phenomenon known as gravitional lensing, as predicted by Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity.

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Very interesting.

 

[Evil Eye]

Yo star so fat it warps light.



Interesting indeed.