Mystery of the Flickering Star Solved After Over Four Decades
A Star in a Constellation 380 Light Years Away is Actually Two
They’ve been looking at this thing through telescopes for over 40 years now, but a star in the constellation Scorpius has always puzzled astronomers. The star, some 380 light years away, flashes brightly and fades again, every 1.97 seconds like clockwork. Now they know why. Astronomers say the star, called AR Scorpii, is actually two! A compact white dwarf the size of Earth (but about 200,000 times more dense) and a cool red dwarf, about a third the size of our sun. The smaller star spins incredibly fast, to the point where it charges electrons to almost the speed of light. As it spins at break-neck speeds, the electrons are whipped through space, lashing the larger star, causing it to release a powerful pulse of electromagnetic radiation every 1.97 minutes. Not only has this relationship between stars never been seen before, it’s never been theorized before. Lead researcher Tom Marsh of the University of Warwick’s Astrophysics Group “AR Scorpii was discovered over 40 years ago, but its true nature was not suspected until we started observing it in 2015.” said Lead researcher Tom Marsh of the University of Warwick’s Astrophysics Group. “We realised we were seeing something extraordinary within minutes of starting the observations.”
Video Credit: ESO/L. Calçada/University of Warwick
