Wednesday, April 8, 2026

A New Class of Star: Merger Remnant

This artist's illustration shows two white dwarf stars merging. Usually, the merger creates a supernova, but new research concludes that two separate and unusual white dwarfs are best explained as merger remnants. The researchers say they are a new class of object. Image Credit: University of Warwick/Mark Garlick

In the vastness of the Universe, any new object with interesting properties can spur the search for similar objects, potentially establishing a new class of stars. In a paper published in Astronomy & Astrophysics and an arXiv preprint, researchers from the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) describe two stellar remnants that share five properties, including X-ray emission, despite being isolated objects. According to the team, these two remnants are sufficient to define a new class of stars.



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