June 16, 2022
Astronomers Spot Weird Star That is Traveling Faster Than Anything Else Like It
Astronomers have now observed the fastest fading nova ever recorded, a stellar explosion that led researchers to an array of bizarre traits that could help them better understand the death process of stars and its connection to interstellar chemistry.
Such explosions can be incredibly bright, and typically take many days to weeks to fade. But V1674 Hercules, a nova observed on June 12 2021, flashed bright enough to be seen by the naked eye on Earth, and then faded in a matter of hours.
“It was only about one day,” Arizona State University astrophysicist and one of the authors of a paper published Tuesday (June 14) in the Research Notes of the American Astronomical Society, said in a statement.
“The previous fastest nova was one we studied back in 1991, V838 Herculis, which declined in about two or three days.”
However, the strangeness of V1674 Hercules doesn’t end with how fast it faded in brightness. Astronomers also observed the explosion wobble.
A pulsation in visible light and X-rays every 501 seconds persists a year after the initial explosion.
“The most unusual thing is that this oscillation was seen before the outburst, but it was also evident when the nova was some 10 magnitudes brighter,” said Mark Wagner, a research scientist in astronomy at Ohio State University and a co-author of the study.
“A mystery that people are trying to wrestle with is what’s driving this periodicity that you would see it over that range of brightness in the system.”
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