Meet the super-speedy white dwarf binary system that's going to grav-wave our world

[Judi Lynn]

ZTF J1539+5027 - where a year lasts under seven minutes
By Katyanna Quach 25 Jul 2019 at 07:02



Artist's impression of the eclipsing white dwarf binary. Image credit: Caltech/IPAC
Astronomers have discovered the fastest-known eclipsing white dwarf pair yet, with the dead stars whizzing around each other every 6.91 minutes, according to a Nature paper published on Wednesday.

The binary system known as ZTF J1539+5027 – or J1539 for short – is made up of two white dwarf stars that are roughly about the size of Earth. One is slightly smaller and less bright than the other, but despite their small sizes, they both pack enough mass equal to the Sun.

Locked in an intense dance, the pair are circling around each other with the space in between them getting smaller and smaller and they will spiral into one another. The spectacle is expected to send massive gravitational waves rippling through spacetime, but don’t hold your breath as they still have another 200,000 years to go.

“The reason this is all so interesting is we really don't know what happens when these things merge, and so finding some systems like this right before they merge tells us a lot about the likely outcomes,” Kevin Burdge, first author of the study and a graduate student at the California Institute of Technology, told The Register.

More:
https://www.theregister.co.uk/2019/07/25/white_dwarf_binary_system/