Indian-led study finds one of the fastest shrinking star systems yet
An international team of astronomers, led by Indian researchers, has discovered a pair of white dwarf stars orbiting each other at an unprecedented speed. These remnants of Sun-like stars, which have exhausted their nuclear fuel and collapsed into incredibly dense cores, are circling one another every six minutes. The study, published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, reveals that this ultracompact binary system, named eRASSU J0608, is shrinking at an astonishing rate, indicating the emission of gravitational waves.
Dr Rahul Sharma, the lead researcher from Pune-based International Centre for Astronomy and Astrophysics, emphasizes that this system is one of the most massive and rapidly evolving ultracompact white dwarf binaries currently known. Its rapid orbital decay also makes it an ideal candidate for verifying future space-based gravitational-wave observatories like LISA.
Originally detected through the Chinese-led Einstein Probe mission and NASA’s NICER telescope, eRASSU J0608's orbit is decaying faster than any other known system of its kind, placing it among the most extreme examples of such binary systems.
Written by urgent.news from The Indian Express's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
