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Helium-Rich White Dwarf Binary Stars Erupt in Violent Flare-Ups Posted by Guy Pirro on 7/21/2010 4:22 PM A team of astronomers at the Armagh Observatory in Northern Ireland has spotted violent eruptions from a pair of interacting stars that orbit around each other every 25 minutes. The stars, separated by a distance equivalent to just half that between the Earth and Moon, are both helium-rich white dwarfs -- the compact remnants that are the end state of stars like our Sun. The double system, known as KL Dra, is in the constellation Draco. The new observations were made using the fully robotic Liverpool Telescope located in the Canary Islands and the orbiting Swift observatory. The binary stars are close enough to each other to enable the more massive partner to drag helium off of the smaller one, causing a violent flare-up every two months. | Read full story |

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