NASA Gets First-Ever Look Inside a White Dwarf System in Remarkable Detail
EX Hydrae is a white dwarf star system located about 200 light-years from Earth. For the first time ever, astronomers used NASA's IXPE (Imaging X-ray Polarization Explorer) to study it and found fascinating results. In a study published in The Astrophysical Journal, astrophysics research scientists used the IXPE’s X-ray polarization to measure the energetic system of the star in the constellation Hydra. This white dwarf star has roughly the same diameter as Earth and as much mass as the Sun, as per NASA. EX Hydrae has a companion star that feeds gas into it, a process known as accretion. However, the geometrical distribution of particles on the accretion disk depends on the magnetic field of the dwarf star.
Ideally, magnetic pull is strongest at the poles. Since EX Hydrae has a relatively weaker magnetic field, the materials pulled from its companion star don't remain at the magnetic poles but rapidly increase the mass of the accretion disk, forming intermediate polars. An intermediate polar system within a white dwarf star implies that the materials from the companion star accumulate at the disk while simultaneously being pulled into its magnetic poles. This phenomenon heats the dwarf star matter upto tens of millions of degrees Fahrenheit. In the aftermath, the materials or gas released from the companion star bounce off the materials already present within the dwarf star. This high-energy interaction forms a towering column emitting powerful X-rays.
Thanks to the agency's powerful technology, astronomers were able to measure the column. “NASA IXPE’s one-of-a-kind polarimetry capability allowed us to measure the height of the accreting column from the white dwarf star to be almost 2,000 miles high – without as many assumptions required as past calculations,” said Sean Gunderson, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) scientist and lead author of the study. “The X-rays we observed likely scattered off the white dwarf’s surface itself," Gunderson explained.
Astronomers have admitted that the images they captured are one-of-a-kind due to the details they reveal. "These features are far smaller than we could hope to image directly and clearly show the power of polarimetry to ‘see’ these sources in detail, never before possible," he added. The recent findings will help scientists understand the white dwarf star system and how matter behaves around it better.
The extremely detailed imaging and information will serve as a database for scientists studying similar binary energy systems in the future. It will especially enable studying magnetic fields and X-ray emissions from the white dwarf stars in the universe. Moreover, NASA's IXPE mission is pushing the envelope of space exploration by bringing never-before-seen details to the forefront. The mission is a joint venture between NASA and the Italian Space Agency in collaboration with scientists across the world. The IXPE mission is dedicated to providing unprecedented data on extreme and isolated celestial bodies across the galaxy using the highly efficient X-ray polarization technique. According to the agency, the space observatory is created to explore celestial objects or phenomena like supernova explosions, streams of particles expelled from black holes, and much more. The mission also aims to find the closest answers to the biggest mysteries, like the spinning of black holes or what powers the jets of active black holes.
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