The universe seems to have remained hugely unexplored, much more than what has been expected! This is also well revealed by a new synthesis by the scientists - they have concluded that the universe has been housing a category of stars, previously unknown.
This has been concluded by the eight unusual examples of a burned-out celestial object — white dwarf — detected in our Milky Way galaxy.
With the fact that white dwarfs mark the stellar evolution’s end point for all, the series of this phenomenon led the astronomers believe that the most massive of stars in the universe — with about 97 percent of stars, including our sun - are destined to disappear this way!
The eight white dwarfs are said to break the mold by possessing carbon atmospheres. Have they formed from stars much more massive than the sun? The researchers are zeroing onto this, believing their not being quite massive enough to explode as a supernova.
In a telephone interview, University of Arizona astrophysicist Patrick Dufour said,
It was totally unexpected because all of the white dwarfs we knew so far were either hydrogen-rich or helium-rich. So this is a completely new kind of star.
How do the white dwarfs form? What does this tell us about stellar evolution? — Trying to explain these definitely come as challenge to the astronomers.
