This week we have seen a never-ending stream of science from the American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting. One of the things I love most about the meeting is researchers will present their early results, saying, “Hey, we found this thing and we’re still figuring it out.” For science, this is kind of like a movie trailer. We know something exciting is coming, but we have no idea what the plot twists will turn out to be. My favorite result of this kind so far is the announcement that the binary system V1674 Herculis not only had the fastest nova explosion to date, but it also has this weird wobble in its brightness.

Back in 2021, amateur astronomer Seidji Ueda reported that this system with a white dwarf and a regular star flared up in brightness. A day later, the flare was gone. This kind of a nova can occur over and over as the white dwarf steals material from its companion and that material gets dense enough to explode. Normally, these novae flare up for many days, and the prior fastest event observed was two to three days in duration. To see an event that is only a day long made astronomers sit up and point their telescopes.

Follow-up observations presented by Sumner Starrfield at AAS point out that in addition to being weirdly brief, this nova’s light also revealed an oscillation in brightness across wildly different colors of light — an oscillation that can’t yet be explained! Every 501 seconds, the star gives off both visible and X-ray light waves.

Now, researchers have to figure out what caused this wild explosion and is making the system ring like a bell. It is super weird, and I for one look forward to the CSI: Astronomy that is about to take place.

More Information

ASU press release

“V1674 Hercules: It is Blowing out a Wind,” C. E. Woodward, R. Mark Wagner, and Sumner Starrfield, 2022 June, Research Notes of the AAS