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Shrinking giants, exploding dwarves
When white dwarf stars explode, they leave behind a rapidly expanding cloud of 'stardust' known as a Type Ia supernova. These exploding events, which shine billions of times brighter than our sun, are all presumed to be extremely similar, and thus have been used extensively as cosmological reference beacons to trace distance and the evolution of... view more... (2007-08-28)

XMM-Newton uncovers a celestial Rosetta stone
ESA's XMM-Newton orbiting X-ray telescope has uncovered a celestial Rosetta stone: the first close-up of a white dwarf star, circling a companion star, that could explode into a particular kind of supernova in a few million years.   view more (2009-09-04)

First view of a newborn millisecond pulsar?
Combining Hubble Space Telescope images with radio observations has revealed a highly unusual system consisting of a fast spinning pulsar and a bloated red companion star. The existence of the system is something of a mystery - the best explanation so far is that we have our first view of a millisecond pulsar just after it has been `spun up` by... view more... (2002-02-13)

UBC astronomers discover how white dwarf stars get their 'kicks'
University of British Columbia astronomer Harvey Richer and UBC graduate student Saul Davis have discovered that white dwarf stars are born with a natal kick, explaining why these smoldering embers of Sun-like stars are found on the edge rather than at the centre of globular star clusters.   view more (2007-12-05)

It may not be long before we see other worlds
WE MAY actually see a planet around a nearby star within the next six months. A team of British astronomers hope to achieve this feat by focusing their search on white dwarfs-dimly glowing stars at the end of their lives.         Although more than 80 planets outside our Solar System have been discovered,... view more... (2002-03-06)

Mystery of R Coronae Borealis and other helium stars solved
Astronomers Dr Simon Jeffery of the Armagh Observatory and Dr Hideyuki Saio of Tohoku University, Japan, have finally solved a long-standing mystery concerning the creation of two particular kinds of rare stars. They have found that a class of variable stars named after their prototype R Coronae Borealis (RCrB), and a related group called `extreme... view more... (2002-03-25)

NASA sees orbiting stars flooding space with gravitational waves
A scientist using NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has found evidence that two white dwarf stars are orbiting each other in a death grip, destined to merge.   view more (2005-05-30)

The missing link in the evolution of magnetic cataclysmic stars?
An international team of astronomers might have discovered the missing link in the evolution of the so-called magnetic cataclysmic variable stars. They determined the spin and orbital periods of the binary star Paloma.   view more (2007-09-17)

Cosmic dance helps galaxies lose weight
A study published this week in the journal Nature offers an explanation for the origin of dwarf spheroidal galaxies. The research may settle an outstanding puzzle in understanding galaxy formation.   view more (2009-07-30)

Astronomers use Hubble to 'weigh' Dog Star's companion
For astronomers, it's always been a source of frustration that the nearest white-dwarf star is buried in the glow of the brightest star in the nighttime sky. This burned-out stellar remnant is a faint companion of the brilliant blue-white Dog Star, Sirius, located in the winter constellation Canis Major.   view more (2005-12-13)

Unveiling the Secret of a Virgo Dwarf Galaxy
Dwarf galaxies may not be as impressive in appearance as their larger brethren, but they are at least as interestingfrom a scientific point of view. And sometimes they may have hidden properties that will only be found by means of careful observations, probing the signals of their stars at the faintest level. Such as the entirely unexpected, well... view more... (2000-05-03)

White Dwarf Pulses Like a Pulsar
New observations from Suzaku, a joint Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) and NASA X-ray observatory, have challenged scientists' conventional understanding of white dwarfs. Observers had believed white dwarfs were inert stellar corpses that slowly cool and fade away, but the new data tell a completely different story.   view more (2008-01-03)

X-rays provide a new way to investigate exploding stars
ESA's X-ray observatory XMM-Newton has revealed a new class of exploding stars - where the X-ray emission 'lives fast and dies young'.   view more (2007-05-10)

A Vanishing Star Revisited
Reinhold H'¤fner of the Munich University Observatory (Germany) is a happy astronomer.   view more (1999-07-20)

Planets like earth may have formed around other stars, UCLA astronomers report
The chemical fingerprint of a burned-out star indicates that Earth-like planets may not be rare in the universe and could give clues to what our solar system will look like when our sun dies and becomes a white dwarf star some five billion years from now.   view more (2007-08-20)

Double-star systems cycle between big and small blasts
Certain double, or binary, star systems erupt in full-blown explosions and then flare up with smaller bursts, according to new information gathered by NASA's Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) and analyzed by a team of astronomers, including postdoctoral researcher Mark Seibert of the Carnegie Observatories.   view more (2007-03-08)

Exploding star takes astronomers by surprise
A partially exploding star, known as a nova, has recovered more quickly than expected, say scientists who have analysed new data from the ESA`s XMM-Newton X-ray satellite. Nova explosions are not completely destructive phenomena. In fact, after an explosion occurs, the star recovers and starts shining again. Until now, astronomers have not known... view more... (2002-10-11)

Supercomputer simulations shed light on cataclysmic variable flashes.
New supercomputer simulations may help explain periodic bursts of light emitted by compact binary star systems.   view more (2005-03-31)

Largest collection of anomalous white dwarfs observed in new Hubble images
Twenty-four unusual stars, 18 of them newly discovered, have been observed in new Hubble telescope images. The stars are white dwarfs, a common type of dead star, but they are odd because they are made of helium rather than the usual carbon and oxygen. This is the first extensive sequence of helium-core white dwarfs to be observed in a globular... view more... (2009-04-23)

The colourful demise of a Sun-like star
A brand new image taken with Hubble's Wide Field Planetary Camera 2 shows the planetary nebula NGC 2440 - the chaotic structure of the demise of a star.   view more (2007-02-15)
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