Introducing the Micronova

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25250/thescbr.brk720

Keywords:

Astrophysics, Astronomy, White Dwarfs, Novae

Abstract

Novae have been observed for centuries in the night sky, unveiling just how dynamic our Universe can be. Our recent observations have revealed rapid and energetic bursts of light lasting tens of hours or less from some accreting white dwarfs. Although yet to be established, the mechanism triggering these events may be similar to novae, but one million times less energetic: a micronova.

Author Biography

Simone Scaringi, Durham University

Professor

Original article reference

Scaringi, S., Groot, P. J., Knigge, C., Bird, A. J., Breedt, E., Buckley, D. A. H., Cavecchi, Y., Degenaar, N. D., de Martino, D., Done, C., Fratta, M., Iłkiewicz, K., Koerding, E., Lasota, J.-P., Littlefield, C., Manara, C. F., O’Brien, M., Szkody, P., & Timmes, F. X. (2022). Localized thermonuclear bursts from accreting magnetic white dwarfs. Nature, 604(7906), 447–450. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-04495-6

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Published

2023-07-17

Issue

Vol. 9 No. 3 (2023): TheScienceBreaker

Section

Earth & Space

License

Some rights reserved 2023 Simone Scaringi

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.