Discussion: Old Star Reignites its Flame

[Fraser]

SUMMARY: "Sakurai's Object" is a white dwarf star that surprised astronomers when if flared brightly in 1996. They originally thought it was a common nova explosion, but further observations have uncovered that the star has actually reignited its stellar furnace. Computer simulations predicted that it could be possible for leftover hydrogen to sink into the star and drive a new flash of hydrogen fusion. If the simulation is correct, the star will stay bright until around the year 2200.

View full article

What do you think about this story? Post your comments below.

[iantresman]

Originally posted by fraser@Apr 8 2005, 04:32 PM
SUMMARY: "Sakurai's Object" is a white dwarf star that surprised astronomers when if flared brightly in 1996. They originally thought it was a common nova explosion, but further observations have uncovered that the star has actually reignited its stellar furnace. Computer simulations predicted that it could be possible for leftover hydrogen to sink into the star and drive a new flash of hydrogen fusion. If the simulation is correct, the star will stay bright until around the year 2200.

View full article

What do you think about this story? Post your comments below.

The Electric Universe theory also predicts that a star can re-ignite when the star's electrical environment changes, which could be until the year 2200, or next week, or next millennium.

Regards,
Ian Tresman

[lswinford]

I still remember pondering, some 30-odd years ago, about the brief phasing existance of subatomic particles. I remember hearing of strong forces and weak forces that held the particles together to form an atom's nucleus. I remember hearing about the respective particle bonding in fusion and the splintering of fission, usually from neutrons fired in chain reactions elsewhere or as part of the decay of unstable isotopes. When I think of the plasma-type conditions of stellar gasses, I still sometimes muse that in all this energetic flux if the sun's heavy abundance of hydrogen is more from individual protons boiling loose than that they are merely unspent fuel for the star's fires. In this way, especially considering the common estimates of the ages of stars in multiple billions of years, I kind of wonder if it isn't really hard for a star to run out of its primary fussion fuel?

--musings from a mildly muddled middle-ager

[StarLab]

All of which begs the question: could this possibly at all happen to our own Sun?

[dave_f]

Originally posted by StarLab@Apr 8 2005, 06:04 PM
All of which begs the question: could this possibly at all happen to our own Sun?

I don't see why not. Maybe this is common for all white dwarves over their lifetimes (and those lifetimes are long: something on the order of 10^30 years or somewhere in that ballpark). They do grow more compact with age as they cool and the degenerate matter at the core settles down and gets denser, so the occasional fusion event shouldn't be a surprise. Heck for all we know these things light up like blinking christmas tree lights all over the Universe.