[LINK] More on the odd Nova Vulpeculae 1670, aka CK Vulpeculae

[rfmcdonald]

Earlier this year, in March, I linked to a National Geographic report examining the very odd stellar object Nova 1770 Vulpeculae, also known as CK Vulpeculae. Universe Today seems to confirm the object is best explained by a very rare collision of two stars.

“For many years, this object was thought to be a nova,” said ESO researcher Tomasz Kaminski of the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn Germany in a recent press release. “But the more it was studied, the less it looked like an ordinary nova—or indeed any other kind of exploding star.”

A typical nova occurs when material being siphoned off a companion star onto a white dwarf star during a process known as accretion builds up to a point where a runaway fusion reaction occurs.

ESO researchers used an instrument known as the Atacama Pathfinder EXperiment telescope (APEX) based on the high Chajnantor plateau in Chile to probe the remnant nebula from the 1670 event at submillimeter wavelengths. They found that the mass and isotopic composition of the resulting nebula was very uncharacteristic of a standard nova event.

A best fit model for the 1670 event is a rare stellar merger, with two main sequence stars smashing together and exploding in a grand head on collision, leaving the resulting nebula we see today. This event also resulted in a newly recognized category of star known as a “red transient” or luminous red nova.

Much more at the site.