Death of a White Dwarf Star Creates Cosmic Red Ribbons of Gas, NASA Shares Photo

In a binary system – two stars orbiting each other – a white dwarf gravitational pulls matter from its companion and then explodes.

By Edited by Gadgets 360 Newsdesk | Updated: 13 November 2021 11:03 IST

Death of a White Dwarf Star Creates Cosmic Red Ribbons of Gas, NASA Shares Photo

Photo Credit: NASA, ESA, and Y. Chou

DEM L249 located in the Large Magellanic Cloud

Highlights

The white dwarf star is called DEM L249
It is located nearly 200,000 light-years away from Earth
It was spotted by Hubble Space Telescope

NASA took to Instagram to share an image that showed the remnants of a supernova, a large explosion that takes place at the end of a star's life cycle. And, it is indeed remarkable. NASA said the event was created by the death (explosion) of a white dwarf star. A white dwarf is usually stable. But in a binary system, where two stars are orbiting each other, a white dwarf gravitational pulls matter from its companion and then explodes. A similar thing happened with this star.

NASA said in the post, “astronomers suspect this white dwarf star was more massive than expected, which also means it would have died earlier in its lifecycle.”

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by NASA (@nasa)

Named DEM L249, this white dwarf was located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, nearly 200,000 light-years away from Earth. The Hubble Space Telescope found it while “searching for surviving companions of white dwarf stars that went supernova in the Magellanic Cloud.”

The cosmic ribbons of gas, depicted in the image in red, have been left behind by the titanic stellar explosion. “A true chart-topper, this supernova remnant was found to have hotter gas and shine brighter in X-rays than the remnant of a typical Type 1a supernova,” the agency said on the Instagram post.

NASA Shares Stunning Image of Star-Forming Region in Space

Separately, NASA explained via animation how a white dwarf star steals material away from a nearby stellar companion. When it reaches critical mass, it is no longer able to sustain its own mass and hence the star explodes and dies, creating a Type 1a supernova.

Hubble Telescope Finds 6 Early, 'Dead' Galaxies That Ran Out of Cold Hydrogen

The Hubble telescope, a joint collaboration of NASA and the European Space Agency, was launched in 1990. It has since been one of the most relied on tools for space observation by scientists as the telescope has an unobstructed view of deep space.

Is JioPhone Next the 4G phone for everyone that Reliance promises? We discuss this on Orbital, the Gadgets 360 podcast. Orbital is available on Spotify, Gaana, JioSaavn, Google Podcasts, Apple Podcasts, Amazon Music and wherever you get your podcasts.

Affiliate links may be automatically generated - see our ethics statement for details.

Comments

For the latest tech news and reviews, follow Gadgets 360 on X, Facebook, WhatsApp, Threads and Google News. For the latest videos on gadgets and tech, subscribe to our YouTube channel. If you want to know everything about top influencers, follow our in-house Who'sThat360 on Instagram and YouTube.