April 22 2022
9:43 AM
3BMeteo التحرير Editorial Team
1 minute 24 seconds
We never stop making new discoveries about Void. The latest one, which happened a few days ago thanks to an international team of astronomers, concerns A new type of thermonuclear explosion: a micronova. This important discovery was made thanks to the analysis of data from TESS, a mission dedicated to the search and characterization of exoplanets.
A micronova is an explosion smaller than a supernova or a supernova, but it’s still strong. To give a visualization of its strength, it is estimated that it could burn an amount of matter equivalent to 3.5 billion of the pyramids of Giza. All kinds of stellar explosions occur on white dwarfs, which are dead stars with a mass similar to that of the Sun, but as small as Earth.
a white dwarf In a two star system, it can steal matter, mostly hydrogen, from its companion star if they are close enough to each other. When this gas falls on the superheated surface of the white dwarf star, it releases Explosive fusion of hydrogen atoms in helium. In a nova, these thermonuclear explosions occur over the entire stellar surface.
“For the first time, we have now seen that hydrogen fusion can also occur in a local way. Hydrogen fuel can be contained at the base of the magnetic poles of some white dwarfs, so fusion only occurs at these magnetic poles.” , has announced Astronomer Paul Grote of Radboud University in the Netherlands, co-author of the study. “This results in the detonation of micronova bombs, which have about a millionth the power of a nova explosion, hence the name Micronova.”
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