NASAのインスタグラム(nasa) - 3月15日 11時04分

This graphic features an artist's impression of a star found in the closest orbit known around a black hole. Astronomers found this extraordinarily close stellar pairing in a globular cluster, a dense collection of stars located on the outskirts of the Milky Way galaxy, about 14,800 light years from Earth. This particular source, known as X9, has been of interest to scientists for many years. Until a couple of years ago, astronomers thought X9 contained a white dwarf pulling material from a companion star like the Sun. (Astronomers call a pair of objects orbiting one another a 'binary' system.) However, a team of scientists in 2015 used radio data to show that X9 likely consisted instead of a black hole pulling gas from a white dwarf companion. These researchers predicted that the white dwarf would take only about 25 minutes to orbit the black hole.

As seen in the artist's illustration, the white dwarf is so close to the black hole that much of its material is being pulled away. If it continues to lose mass, this white dwarf may evolve into some exotic sort of planet or completely evaporate.

Image credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/University of Alberta/A.Bahramian et al.; Illustration: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss

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