back to article Weird white dwarf pulsar baffles boffins as its pulsating pattern changes over decades

Scientists trying to crack the mystery behind the fastest-pulsating white dwarf have found that its brightness levels change over a timescale of decades. AR Scorpii is a distant, peculiar binary star system located 380 light years away. It’s made of a collapsed white dwarf star circling its larger red dwarf companion. It was …

  1. Tom 7

    AR Sco

    Snigger. That is all.

  2. John Smith 19 Gold badge
    Thumb Up

    Proving that whenever you think you've reached the limit of how strange the universe is

    It gets a bit stranger.

    It's not quite the "On off star" of "A Deepness In The Sky" but it's quite odd.

    So thumbs up for analysing the data and getting this result.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Proving that whenever you think you've reached the limit of how strange the universe is

      Yes, as Isaac Asimov is reputed to have once said, "The most exciting phrase to hear in science is not 'Eureka!' but rather, 'hmm... that's funny...'"

  3. Neil Barnes Silver badge
    Headmaster

    a teaspoon ... would weigh 15 tons.

    Surely, that would depend where you weigh it. If you weighed it *here* it might weigh 15 tons, but if you weighed it where you got it, it'd probably weigh a damn sight more...

    1. Brewster's Angle Grinder Silver badge

      Re: a teaspoon ... would weigh 15 tons.

      It won't matter. A properly calibrating "weighing machine" gives you the mass of the object being weighed.

      But, obviously, if you use a balance calibrated for earth if will give a silly answer. And there are various caveats about relativity and non-inertial frames.

      I'll leave you to write your own jokes.

      1. Bandikoto

        Re: a teaspoon ... would weigh 15 tons.

        > if you use a balance calibrated for earth

        Well, actually, if you use a balance and always use the same standard weights (masses - yes yes we know they're different things, especially outside of a 1g field) on one side of the balance, it will register the same weight/mass no matter where you use it.

        Your bog-standard springy scale, on the other hand, is another story entirely.

    2. Chris G

      Re: a teaspoon ... would weigh 15 tons.

      Weigh is the wrong word, especially here. It should be 'has a Mass of 15 tons' mass doesn't need a gravity well, weight does.

      1. Martin Gregorie

        Re: a teaspoon ... would weigh 15 tons.

        If you're trying to measure mass, use the right units: newtons.

        Tons, whether American, British or metric, are measurements of the force exerted by gravitational attraction at the Earth's surface.

        </pedant>

        1. HandleAlreadyTaken

          Re: a teaspoon ... would weigh 15 tons.

          You have those slightly completely reversed though

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_versus_weight

        2. richardcox13

          Re: a teaspoon ... would weigh 15 tons.

          > If you're trying to measure mass, use the right units: newtons

          Oops: 100% wrong.

          Kilograms for mass; Newtons for weight.

          1. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: a teaspoon ... would weigh 15 tons.

            Never mind science - what would in weigh in el Reg units?

      2. TDog

        Re: a teaspoon ... would weigh 15 tons.

        Well that is assuming that inertial mass is equivalent to gravitational mass. I always was uncomfortable about that myself; I have quite a large gravitational mass (compared to most skinny buggers) but my inertial mass is amazing when the wife asks me to cut the grass or do the washing up.

        Mind you, when it comes down to software or other such matters my inertial mass makes a feather look like a lead cannonball.

  4. Pascal Monett Silver badge
    Thumb Up

    Learn something every day

    I knew white dwarfs, today I've learned about red dwarfs. They can last trillions of years because they are convective, meaning they don't build up helium in the core.

    Science. You can read about for thirty years but there's always something to surprise you.

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Learn something every day

      I'm not sure space is expected to last trillions of years, let alone stars.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Learn something every day

        It depends on whether you believe in continuous expansion or a big bang followed by a big crunch. If the first, the universe will get bigger, things in it will get more isolated, and stars will run down until eventually everything fades to black. If the latter, the red dwarves will collapse back into the singularity before they run out of fuel.

        I do not expect to be around to find out for certain which will happen, though.

      2. 0laf

        Re: Learn something every day

        Might be a lot longer than trillions

        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Five_Ages_of_the_Universe

  5. Chris Miller
  6. Slx

    My theory is that it's likely to be a star surrounded by pre or post planet debris that is coalescing into larger blobs causing the light to be stronger when they're more organised and then they bash into each other every so often splitting up scattering the light, then they coalesce again. So, we're observing a brightening and dimming effect as the light/radiation is obscured/scattered and then picks up again, depending on how organised the debris is at any given time.

    It would make sense to me that solar systems would go through long periods of stuff coming together and bashing into each other and splitting apart until eventually the only objects that survive are ones with clear paths and you get an organised, non-chaotic solar system like ours.

    It's also quite possible that loose debris (in huge quantities) could do something like that very quickly. It could be just balls of rubble / dust coming together then smashing apart in a matter of a few years.

  7. Scroticus Canis
    Holmes

    Not much change since Iain Thomson's remarkably similar article on 8 Feb 2017.

    No other comment.

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