Astronomers have discovered a new white pulsar, one of the rarest types of stars ever found in our galaxy.
Astronomers have just discovered one of the rarest stars in our galaxy. These types of stars are known as white dwarf pulsar stars, and they’re so rarely seen that only one other is known to exist in the entire Milky Way. Now, that original white pulsar, known as AR Scorpii, is joined by what astronomers have called J1912-4410.
The newly discovered white pulsar is located just 773 light-years away from Earth and was recently discovered by a group of astronomers and astrophysicists working with the University of Warwick in the United Kingdom. On top of giving us another glimpse at these rare stars, the discovery also helps highlight and confirm that the magnetic field of white dwarfs is generated by an internal dynamo.
That process is similar to how Earth’s liquid core generates the magnetic field that surrounds our planet. However, the field generated by the white dwarf pulsar is much stronger. Far more powerful, in fact. “The magnetic fields in white dwarfs can be more than a million times stronger than the magnetic field of the Sun, and the dynamo model helps to explain why. The discovery of J1912-4410 provided a critical step forward in this field,” astrophysicist Ingrid Pelisoli, from the University of Warwick,
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