"Stellar Stomach Trouble"

[Petrel]

RS Ophiuchi is a binary system made of a white dwarf and a red giant orbiting each other. The white dwarf is close enough to strip material away from the red giant's atmosphere, causing a massive explosion about every 20 years. This time observation of the explosion showed that the white dwarf is actually inside the red giant's atmosphere.

As expected, astronomers measured initial temperatures from the explosion of up to 100 million degrees Celsius--nearly 10 times that in the core of the sun. One of the most surprising results, says Michael Bode of Liverpool John Moores University in the United Kingdom, was a secondary increase in brightness, which might be caused by the blast temporarily cutting a hole through the red giant's atmosphere to expose the white dwarf's light.

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[Daisy]

Spectacular!