Astronomers Discover Rare Hybrid Pulsating Star in Binary System

A team of astronomers led by Stevenson Professor of Physics and Astronomy, Keivan Stassun recently discovered a rare, unique magnetic hybrid pulsating binary star system.

“This type of star is so extremely unusual that, frankly, we would not have thought to go looking for it — nobody has seen one before!” — Keivan Stassun, lead author of the study

Artist concept of NASA’s TESS observing an M dwarf star with orbiting planets. Credit: NASA/NASA’s Goddard Spaceflight Center

The team behind this research recently generated a new model that improved the ability to measure stars. This model helps to predict the types of planets orbiting distant stars and has been used to identify 100+ stars found by NASA’s TESS and other exoplanet hunters. This model also allowed the team to uncover the strange nature of the binary star system in the study.

“Being able to combine all the different types of measurements into one coherent analysis was certainty key to being able to decipher the various unusual characteristics of this star system.” — Keivan Stassun

The orientation of this unique binary star system allows us to view the stars eclipsing each other from Earth’s perspective. This helped researchers to calculate important quantities more easily, such as mass and luminosity.

In this star system, one of the stars pulsates and exhibits hybrid characteristics of the two types…