For the first time ever , astronomers have found evidence for a ashen gnome and brown dwarf collide – and the case may have been seen on Earth back in 1670 .
Reported in theMonthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society , an external squad of scientists used the Atacama Large Millimeter / submillimeter Array ( ALMA ) in Chile to observe the leftover of the suspect explosion , more than 2,000 light - years from Earth .
In 1670 , this event in the night sky – know as Nova Vulpeculae or CK Vulpeculae – flare up to be one of the 100 brightest sensation in the sky . It disappeared from view shortly after , leading astronomers to subsequently suspect it was an plosion called a nova .
former studieshave suggestedthe outcome was the result of two stars like our Sun colliding . But this latest study suggests it is something more unusual : a collision between a dead virtuoso ( a ashen dwarf ) and a failed star ( a brown dwarf ) .
“ The type we trust that happened here is a new one , not antecedently considered or ever seen before , ” Professor Albert Zijlstra from the University of Manchester said in astatement . “ This is an extremely exciting discovery . "
The effect left behind an hourglass shape , which has been difficult to explain . Studying this dust , however , the researcher found that a white midget - dark-brown dwarf merger could be the result .
It ’s thought the hourglass chassis was the result of the brown dwarf , which is a failed star that was unable to ignite nuclear fusion at its Congress of Racial Equality , being shredded aside and dump on the open of the bloodless dwarf .
As a result , the brown dwarf disintegrated , burning up inthermonuclear explosionsthat were triggered on the snowy nanus . Surrounding the blanched gnome would have been a rotating phonograph recording of shredded material from the browned dwarf that was firing out jets into space .
The investigator come up to this conclusion by watching the brightness level from two more removed stars pass through the debris of the unification . This point the front of lithium , something that ’s normally destruct in the interiors of stars ( but not in brown dwarf ) , suggesting one was involve in the collision .
" The white dwarf would have been about 10 times more massive than the brown dwarf , so as the brown nanus corkscrew into the snowy dwarf it would have been rive apart by the acute tidal force-out exerted by the white nanus , ” the aptly name Professor Sumner Starrfield pronounce in the statement .
Back in 1670 , the case acquire a bright light thatwas seen bythe Carthusian monk Anthelme and the uranologist Hevelius . Today , it leaves us with an intriguing first glance at an event we ’ve never seen before .
