Hubble Confirms Four White Dwarf Stars Hidden Within 65 Light-Years Of Earth For Decades In Red Dwarf Glare: University Of Warwick And Colorado Boulder Team Uses Ultraviolet Spectroscopy To Directly Detect Four Dead Stars Including The Ninth Closest White Dwarf To The Sun
According to Space Daily, astronomers led by the University of Warwick and the University of Colorado Boulder have directly confirmed four white dwarfs; the burned-out cores of dead Sun-like stars within 65 light-years of Earth. The finding, published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, used ultraviolet spectroscopy from the Hubble Space Telescope to pull each faint stellar remnant out of the overpowering glare of the red dwarf companion it orbits.
All four had been invisible in ordinary optical images, where they appeared as single stars. Their presence had only been inferred from gravitational wobble; the subtle back-and-forth motion of the red dwarf betraying an unseen massive companion, but no one had directly seen them until now.
The standout discovery is G 203-47, about 25 light-years away, which has been suspected since the 1990s. Confirming it takes 27 years. It is now classified as the ninth closest white dwarf to the Sun. With the four new confirmations, the white dwarf count within 65 light-years rises to 153; a 16 percent increase and astronomers expect another 9 to 10 pairs remain undiscovered nearby.
The universe keeps hiding things in plain sight. We keep finding them anyway. Check out our previous coverage of science and technology on The Trusted Times.
