For over forty years, astronomers have been baffled by X-rays from the white dwarf at the center of the Helix Nebula. A white dwarf is the remnant of a star that has shed its outer layers to form ...

The Helix Nebula, located 650 light-years from Earth, has baffled scientists for decades. The planetary nebula was created by a dying star that shed its outer layers of gas, leaving behind a small ...

At the heart of a strangely shaped planetary nebula, astronomers have discovered a pair of doomed white dwarf stars that will inevitably merge and explode in a dramatic supernova.

An artist's impression of the heart of planetary nebula Henize 2-428, where researchers have identified two white dwarf stars destined to merge and create a Type Ia supernova (Image credit: ESO/L ...

nebula; page 2; Page 2 - News on nebula. Date. 6 hours 12 hours 1 day 3 days all. ... 2025, shows a potentially destructive white dwarf at the nebula's center; this star may have destroyed a planet.

Doomed twin stars found at nebula's heart. Published. 9 February 2015. Share. close panel. Share page. Copy link. ... To reignite and explode into a supernova, a white dwarf must gain mass, ...

It is a white dwarf star that was once "several times more massive" than the Earth's sun. It has been in the process of dying for over 4,000 years, and "will continue to change over many more ...

It is also rather large, spanning 2° of the night sky, or an area larger than that covered by the Moon. The Heart Nebula's shape is driven by supermassive stars in its core, with the blue colors ...