Ultra-close stars discovered inside a planetary nebula

On: October 23, 2018

An international team of astronomers have discovered two stars in a binary pair that complete an orbit around each other in a little over three hours, residing in the planetary nebula M3-1. Remarkably, the stars could drive a nova explosion, an entirely unexpected event based on our current understanding of binary star evolution. The team, led by David Jones of the Instituto Astrofisica de Canarias and the Universidad de La Laguna, report their findings in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters.

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