A living star threw matter at its dying partner and brought it to life with a burst a million times its previous power. All this at a distance of 70 million light years from us
Avi Blizovsky
Standing on top of a 2435 meter mountain in the heart of the Atacama desert in Chile, the very large telescope made a very big discovery.
Astronomers working at the Very Large Telescope recently discovered the most distant and most powerful stellar nova ever seen. The observatory, funded by the European Space Agency and therefore the astronomers who staffed it were Italian - Roberty Gilmozzi and Rodolfo Viezzer discovered Nubia at a distance of 70 million light-dans in the dusty galaxy NGC 1316, 10 million light-years further than the most distant Nubia observed so far.
The astronomical observations were taken for 10 days between January 9 and 19, 2000 and in them 4 novae were discovered using the equipment in the observatory plus a CCD camera.
Like a supernova, Stella Nubia is a stellar eruption on a massive scale. But unlike a supernova, in which an explosion of an entire star actually takes place and material is thrown into space, probodies are created when a red dwarf in a double star system spits material, mostly hydrogen, at its partner - an almost dead white dwarf. This material acts as a giant fan fueling the nuclear reactions and renewing them on the surface of the white dwarf. As a result, the white dwarf releases energy and eventually shines a million times brighter than before, becoming a Stella Nubia. During the following weeks, Stella Nubia released an amount of energy similar to that which the sun radiates in ten thousand years. Finally, the nova cools down and dies completely.
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