In July 2020, collaborators led by PhD student Zachary Vanderbosch at the University of Texas at Austin have published in The Astrophysical Journal only the second white dwarf known to show transits from an asteroid or planetesimal that got too close to its retired host star. The transits recur roughly every 100 days as the […]
Collaborators led by Tim Bedding at the University of Sydney published in Nature in May 2020 exciting new results from NASA’s TESS mission that are some of the first convincing identifications of the oscillations of a class of massive A stars that pulsate, named after the prototype star delta Scuti. The 2-minute cadence of TESS […]
In May 2020, collaborators led by PhD student Josh Reding at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill published in The Astrophysical Journal the fastest-rotating, isolated white dwarf. The star spins on its axis every 317 seconds, and is only the second white dwarf to show Balmer emission lines — the origin of this […]
In March 2020, collaborators led by Steven Parsons at the University of Sheffield published in Nature Astronomy the first pulsating white dwarf ever found in a binary system that also exhibits eclipses. Having both pulsations and eclipses in this low-mass (0.325 solar-mass) white dwarf will put some exceptional constraints on the star. We already know […]
Collaborators, led by PhD student ZJ Zhang at the University of Hawaii, have discovered a bound pair of stars that serve as an exciting benchmark: one is a T4 (
Group members and collaborators have discovered a new class of zombie stars that are likely the shattered remnants of thermonuclear supernova that did not fully disrupt the white dwarf! Led by Roberto Raddi at Dr.Karl-Remeis-Sternwarte Bamberg, we have now published at least three more members of this new class of star named after the prototype […]
Last year we published in Nature the most comprehensive evidence that white dwarf stars, at the end of their lives, solidify into crystals! The research is best summarized in this quote from Deborah Netburn of The Los Angeles Times: “New research suggests that long after our roiling, boiling life-giving star runs out of fuel, it […]