Incredibly rare stellar merger may have created strange stars

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Meghan is a senior writer at Space.com and has more than five years' experience as a science journalist based in New York City. She joined Space.com in July 2018, with previous writing published in outlets including Newsweek and Audubon. Meghan earned an MA in science journalism from New York University and a BA in classics from Georgetown University, and in her free time she enjoys reading and visiting museums. Follow her on Twitter at @meghanbartels.

, the dense"stellar corpses" left behind when small and medium stars run out of fuel to burn.

And yet, because of the size and temperatures of these two stars, astronomers believe these objects are still burning helium. But usually, stars sport the light elements hydrogen and helium at their surfaces, not the much heavier carbon and oxygen.

"Usually, white dwarf mergers do not lead to the formation of stars enriched in carbon and oxygen," Miller Bertolami said,"but we believe that, for binary systems formed with very specific masses, a carbon- and oxygen-rich white dwarf might be disrupted and end up on top of a helium-rich one, leading to the formation of these stars."

 

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