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University of Warwick-led astronomers have made a record-shattering discovery of the fastest spinning confirmed white dwarf and only second ever magnetic propeller known to exist. This very peculiar white-dwarf star completes a full rotation once an astounding 25 seconds! The scientists in the UK established the spin period of the star for the first time ever, and confirmed that it is an incredibly rare ‘magnetic propeller system’ explains, “the white dwarf is pulling gaseous plasma from a nearby companion star and flinging it into space at around 3000 kilometers per second.”
The star known as LAMOST J024048.51+195226.9 – or J0240+1952 was detected using the incredibly sensitive HiPERCAM instrument mounted to the Gran Telescopio Canarias in La Palma, Canary Islands.
A White Dwarf Star About The Size of Earth
A White Dwarf is a star that has exhausted all of its own fuel and shed its outermost layers. What makes this one fascinating is that it has paired with a larger binary and is pulling plasma away from it, essentially recharging it and causing it’s amazingly fast rotation. In spite of its enormous mass over 200k times greater, the star is approximately the size of the Earth and is rotating every 25 seconds rather than every 24 hours!
Lead study author Dr. Ingrid Pelisoli of the University of Warwick Department of Physics told. SciTech Daily that:
“J0240+1952 will have completed several rotations in the short amount of time that people take to read about it, it is really incredible. The rotation is so fast that the white dwarf must have an above average mass just to stay together and not be torn apart.”
“It is pulling material from its companion star due to its gravitational effect, but as that gets closer to the white dwarf the magnetic field starts to dominate. This type of gas is highly conducting and picks up a lot of speed from this process, which propels it away from the star and out into space.”
Co-author Professor Tom Marsh from the University of Warwick Department of Physics added: “It’s only the second time that we have found one of these magnetic propeller systems, so we now know it’s not a unique occurrence. It establishes that the magnetic propeller mechanism is a generic property that operates in these binaries, if the circumstances are right.”
“The second discovery is almost as important as the first as you develop a model for the first and with the second you can test it to see if that model works. This latest discovery has shown that the model works really well, it predicted that the star had to be spinning fast, and indeed it does.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=duoJuABQSyc
