Chance find sheds light on exploding stars

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A rare event has been identified in a brief X-ray detection. Serendipity only pays off when you know what to do with it, and the researchers used the finding to verify a long-held theory about a class of stars explosive.

  1. Frederick M. Walter

    1. Frederick M. Walter is in the Department of Physics and Astronomy, Stony Brook University, Stony Brook, New York 11794, USA.

Even with the growing amount of archived data in all-sky surveys, astronomical discovery still relies heavily on serendipity. Theory can guide the process (and sometimes lead it astray), but there is no “standard model” for the Universe and all in it, so progress is often driven by the unexpected. . It takes a good observer to see something unusual and interpret it as remarkable. write in NatureKonig et al.1 turned chance into success by correctly characterizing the X-rays, detected in just 35.8 seconds, as the product of an exploding white dwarf, contributing to our understanding of the physics of these stars.

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Nature 605230-231 (2022)

doi: https://doi.org/10.1038/d41586-022-01255-4

References

  1. Konig, O. et al. Nature 605248-250 (2022).

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  2. McNaught, Rhineland-Palatinate CBET 4811 (2020).

  3. Starrfield, S., Truran, JW, Sparks, WM, Krautter, J. & MacDonald, J. in Physics of classical novae (eds Cassatella, A. & Viotti, R.) 306–310 (Springer, 1990).

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Competing interests

The author declares no competing interests.

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