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A diamond the size of the Earth

A white dwarf has been discovered that is probably the coldest and dullest ever discovered, so cold that its core composed of carbon and oxygen crystallized into one large diamond

Artist's illustration of a white dwarf orbiting the pulsar PSR J2222-0137. It may be the coldest and dimmer white dwarf ever discovered. Figure: B. Saxton (NRAO/AUI/NSF)
Artist's illustration of a white dwarf orbiting the pulsar PSR J2222-0137. It may be the coldest and dimmer white dwarf ever discovered. Figure: B. Saxton (NRAO/AUI/NSF)

Astronomers have identified what appears to be the coldest and palest white dwarf yet. The remains of this ancient star are so cold that the carbon inside has crystallized and formed an Earth-sized diamond in space. The age of the discovered object is the age of the Milky Way galaxy - about 11 billion years.

"It's a particularly impressive object," says David Kaplan, a professor at the University of Wisconsin in Milwaukee. "Many such objects should be out there, but because they are so dim they are very difficult to detect."
Kaplan and his colleagues discovered this celestial jewel using the National Radio Observatory's Green Bank Telescope and the Very Large Array – as well as other observatories.
White dwarfs are the compressed final state of stars like the Sun that have collapsed and formed an object similar in size to Earth and composed mainly of carbon and oxygen. White dwarfs cool slowly over billions of years. The newly discovered object is most likely one of the first stars to form in the Milky Way - meaning it is 11 billion years old.

Pulsars are rapidly spinning neutron stars. They are extremely dense remnants of massive stars that exploded as supernovae. As the neutron star spins, it emits pulses of radio waves like a beacon.
The pulsar accompanying the white dwarf, known as PSR J2222-0137, was the first object in this system discovered by Jason Boyles, who was a doctoral student at West Virginia University. These initial observations revealed that the pulsar was spinning at over 30 times per second and that it was gravitationally bound to a companion star, initially thought to be another neutron star or more likely a cold white dwarf. The calculations showed that the two bodies orbit each other in 2.45 days.
The researchers followed the pulsar using the VLBA for two years led by Adam Deller, an astronomer from the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON). These observations showed that it is a system about 900 light-years away from Earth in the direction of the Aquarius group. The information was essential in refining the model used to calculate the time it took for these pulses to reach us at GBT speeds.

 

More on the subject on the science website

 

By adapting Einstein's theory of relativity, the researchers were able to study how the companion star's gravity distorts space and causes radio wave signals to be delayed when the pulsar passes behind it. These delays in the arrival time of the signal allowed the researchers to determine the direction of the orbit and the individual masses of each of the two stars. The pulsar has a mass of 1.2 times that of the Sun and the companion star 1.05 solar masses.

These data strongly suggest that the companion star is no longer a neutron star because the orbits were too regular to survive a second supernova. Given the exact location and appearance of a white dwarf in space, researchers believe that they will be able to observe it in both visible and infrared light.

Amazingly, neither the Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) telescope in Chile nor the Keck telescope in Hawaii, which are 10 meters in diameter - were able to detect it.

"The final images showed us that the companion star is 100 times fainter than any other white dwarf orbiting a neutron star and 10 times fainter than any other known white dwarf, but we see nothing," said Bart Dunlap, a doctoral student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a member of the team of researchers. "If there is a white dwarf there, and there must be according to the calculations, it must be very cold."
The researchers calculated that the temperature of the white dwarf is no higher than 3,000 degrees Kelvin, our sun is 5,000 times hotter.
Astronomers believe that such a cold star left after its collapse a core of crystallized carbon, like a diamond. Very few such stars have been detected, although they are theoretically not rare, but their brightness is so low that it would be difficult to detect unless it was a member of a double star pair.

An article describing these findings was published in the Astrophysical Journal.

to the notice of the researchers

26 תגובות

  1. Father, I have never commented here - but as a young man, 25 years old, whose basic world (VOD, Channel 2, Mako) does not give him any opportunity to connect to the world of science that is so fascinating - thank you for everything you do.

  2. Unfortunately, if they don't understand this for 17 years and only think that their job is to take advantage of everyone they can, followed by the flood, then another 17 years like this won't help, instead of sending me behind the ear, investigators need to speak up to the presidents and warn them that there is an omission here. To me they do not listen with or without the covert encouragement of investigators.

  3. s

    It seems to me that there is some truth in my father's grumbling.

    The Technin's advertising budget, for example, is around 3 million dollars, Tel Aviv University 5-6 million dollars, Ben Gurion 1.5 million dollars, Haifa XNUMX million, (others I could not find, the data may not be the most recent and accurate, based on numbers from about two years ago three)

    On a basic level, it is not unreasonable for a person interested in an academic degree to find the science site as the site he visits. Therefore it is not unreasonable for a university to spend marketing energy on the knowledge site.

    On a principle level, beyond that, there are not many websites, if any, that deal with scientific news in Hebrew. Maintaining a population interested in scientific education also requires the existence of a serious address to the interest of these people in their language. Unless we request that all our children who wish to show an interest in the world of science must first learn English, then we can simply give up the science site. Without a population that would be interested in scientific education, there would be no point in the existence of universities. As you can see, the need to insert marketing content into articles seriously harms this. One of the ways to bring people to study is not only to contact potential students and convince them to come study with you, but to ensure that the population as a whole will be more interested (at least on a statistical level), in the product they provide.
    It is not inevitable that the people at the universities will understand this and contribute to the continued existence of the site (especially since it is quite the only site of its kind).

  4. Look what a fancy thread I made for you. 22 responses. Until now it was free. From now on I demand payment. If in cedars, etc. 🙂 I hope you will also be able to do something you love, both contribute to science education and make a living

  5. And don't believe it, it could be worse, a magazine editor called me and said that universities had asked her for money to allow her to publish their press releases, as a donation to the university. The brazen ones in the marketing section, instead of managing a marketing budget, they became swindlers at the expense of small independents. And this is in a country where there are 7 universities in the list of the 500 best in the world, and a dozen Nobel Prize winners and politicians who constantly talk about the need for scientific education - but the budgets go to ultra-orthodox education.

  6. My father is with you. It is not easy to be independent. It is very difficult to establish a website on the network that will live from advertisements. And your target audience is small. You have chosen a very difficult field. Hard to believe you are surprised. It's a shame you resent the academy and the skeptic. The only one in Israel who is responsible for the science site is not the academy nor the readers but you. Unlike you, I wish the skeptic you and everyone who chooses difficult goals actually succeed. Especially to you because your success is the success of the website that we all love.

  7. Ben Ner, there is no dependence between the fact that it is worth reading critically, which is my responsibility, to a scientific article, which is the responsibility of the writer Melza, and a scientific website should not mislead me about advertisements, which are the responsibility of my father. Each party should be responsible for its part. It is my duty to be careful of potholes and cheats and still the municipality and the police need to plug potholes and catch thieves. Not that anyone here is a criminal, God forbid.

    And I don't think an ad blocker will work in such a case

  8. Skeptic, I wish you to set up a glorious website, maintain it, spend hundreds of thousands of shekels out of your pocket, because of wicked people who want to forcibly make me a donor to all universities, and you settle for a thousand shekels from Google Ads.

  9. A. From the Space Agency
    Still prefer to be in a car made of plastic materials (not plastic....). Just my survival instinct 🙂

  10. At the end of the whole discussion was diverted and we lost the essence of the article.
    S put Adblock for Chrome,

    Miracles
    It is possible to think of a bearing system that is integrated into the shell and knows how to absorb the energy
    Don't be hard as a diamond 🙂

  11. Ben Ner

    It is improper to charge the reader to check whether the article was made by an advertiser.

    The fact that there may be hidden advertising even in supposedly objective articles does not need to justify raising the level of difficulty in distinguishing between different types of advertising
    (By the fact that paid advertisement articles are presented as scientific articles, so you have to look for small letters in which it is implied that this is an advertisement).

  12. to S
    Apparently you are right and make a well-founded argument from the ethical point of view.
    Avi Blizovsky tries to claim to your nation that the constraints of existence force him "into a corner" - he is also right.
    I would like to add another reason, of a philosophical nature, specifically to strengthen my father's position.
    Well :
    Your argument is based on the assumption that there are articles that are "purely scientific" and are sufficient
    Only objective scientific information, and indeed "commercial, advertising" articles and they are intended only
    And only for the profit of the advertising entity.
    However, I know from my own experience, that many times I read different advertisements, myself
    I draw a lot of information from them, technological, cultural and social, which helps me keep up to date with progress
    in many fields. On the other hand, I assume that you will not be surprised to hear that articles and studies
    Many, who claim to be scientific, turn out to be incorrect and even as those who express it
    The researcher's wish rather than the reality being examined.
    What is the conclusion?
    A. Intelligent criticism must be used in choosing the subjects we come to read.
    After all, we cannot read everything that is published, and we must focus on what is interesting
    us or important to us. For example: I did not read the two articles you mentioned at all
    Because in advance I did not find much interest in them according to what I guessed from their titles.
    B. Even when we come to read an article that we have chosen to read, we must do so with an scrutinizing and skeptical eye.
    As mentioned, even scientific studies may be wrong.
    In conclusion, my position on the subject:
    The duty of selection and skeptical reading applies to the reader, and only to him (!!!),
    Both in choosing the read article and in examining what is written in it.
    Please note: there is a lot of similarity between the scientific research work and the research work in the fields
    Others such as intelligence, police research, etc.
    In other words: in scientific reading - you must have a big head, even if you are not a scientist
    Professional but amateur only.

  13. At the moment I have no technical option except to write in the title, and if you were to order such an article it is not exactly what you would like to see. In any case, as mentioned, if you have an influence on the atoms in the ivory tower, this is the only thing that can help.

  14. I have no intention of putting anyone in a corner, but a real (and perhaps naive) hope on a site like this to see a slightly different conduct. Advertisements are great (because they give existence to this site) but not when they are hidden. Even in a newspaper, it's clearer when it's an advertisement, which is a shame and disappointing. What's more, the number of people who enter by mistake will probably greatly increase the exposure to the advertisement.

  15. S is a smart guy (no sarcasm), she already understood that my father wanted as many people as possible to enter the classified article. All the rest of the correspondence is just to corner him. I too would prefer that I see first if the article is not marketing. But if this is what gives my father the motivation to continue, I will not push him into a corner

  16. My father is right, it would have been better if they had given you an advertising budget. They probably don't owe anything but maybe it's the right thing to do. I learned a long time ago that in order to do the right thing I should trust only myself.

    Here I hope you can also be trusted to do the right thing. It seems that you go around a bit and do not address and come back to the same topic again.

    It is not clear to me why not write "marketing content" before marketing content. I don't understand why I need to find this out *after* I've entered. Yes I can remember the names of the advertisers. Yes, I can read the fine print before I read an article with enthusiasm. Yes, the academy can help. But my father also has a part in doing the right thing.

    To put marketing content (advertisement at all) in the list of articles and more without writing that it is an advertisement is not the right thing in my opinion. It's likely because you get paid per ad view. Apparently they don't check how long people stay in the article and they don't reduce the number of people who entered without the intention of reading, read or not and left.

    Is it worth it for you to sell the principle of transparency for how many people made a mistake? Is it worth the feeling of missing out and the suspicion for a few shekels/tens/hundreds that even then originated by mistake?

    You choose not to relate and that is understandable. When it comes to livelihood it is easy for a critic like me to stand behind noble principles 🙂 When it is one's own livelihood then the considerations are more complex and it is not black and white.

  17. As mentioned, the address for complaints is to all entities that benefit from the website and distribute the research in their institutions, assuming that some Shulman finances the operation of the website. Unfortunately, I found out the hard way that there is a huge gap between the quality of research in academia and the quality of management of those institutions themselves.
    I would be happy if you would address the complaint to them, and maybe they will understand that there is no offense in Israeli law to give a promil from their advertising budget to the most important site for them, it's a shame that such small to petty people sit in such large institutions. In such a case, the site could be maintained without conditions.

  18. This is about the article about the need for a degree. Before that she wrote about the efficiency of small cars.

    A. Obviously, from reading I recognized that it was marketing.
    B. Of course you have to make a living.

    My problem is that it appears in the list of articles without specifying "marketing content" in the *name*. That is, only after I entered the "article" itself did it turn out to be marketing content.

    I mean I expected to read a real article about whether a degree is necessary.

    A. The "article" appeared in the list of real articles.
    B. There was no indication in the list of the fact that it was not an article at all.
    third. Only a small tag appeared in the "article" itself. (Does anyone read the tags?)
    d. Only during the reading did the mistake become apparent. You *must* enter the "article" itself (and then the entry/reading must be counted) to discover the mistake.

    I left with a kind of cheating feeling (and obviously the site does not intend to cheat). It's a shame I have to stop myself and suspect such a site. In my opinion, it should be announced before entering the "article" that it is marketing content. Along with the fact that it's in the list of real articles, it's not really an accurate picture...

  19. to S
    A. Making a living is an unjustified necessity
    B. Even you admit that you understood that this is marketing content
    third. What "article" is this about?
    d. 3000 degrees Kelvin = 3000 degrees Celsius +- 10%
    With the accepted assumption that the accuracy of the measurement is about +-10%
    After all, it is enough to write 3000 degrees
    Regarding what is written, as if our sun is 5000 times hotter, i.e. about 6^10 15x well:
    It is interesting to note that the surface of the sun is at a temperature of only about 6.000 degrees!!!
    In total, twice the temperature of the diamond star.
    It is true that a temperature of about 15 million degrees is measured in the sun's halo, and this is probably due to this
    From the effect of accelerating the charged particles in the sun's magnetic field. Even in the core of the sun
    The temperature is probably hotter than the surface and also reaches millions of degrees.
    So the question arises:
    Is the measured temperature of the diamond star the surface temperature or the halo temperature?
    It is likely that the measured radiation is the one emitted from the halo, and it is possible that the surface of the diamond star,
    Much colder, similar to the sun.

  20. It is not possible to write from the outside that it is equivalent content? It is true that they will enter less, but even in the newspaper and on any website you know it is marketing before reading. A very unpleasant feeling to discover after. Anywhere it's jarring if it happens - and it usually doesn't happen - then on a site like this even more so

  21. I would certainly prefer sponsored banners from large academic institutions without changing the order of content on the site, but what to do when the relevant positions at the decision-making nodes are occupied by tiny people? Unfortunately, I have yet to find the responsible adult, not in the universities, not in the colleges, not in the large commercial companies whose heads claim day and night that they support education, and not even in the science museums. I would be happy if you dare/help me with this.

  22. A. From the Space Agency
    The last thing you want to be in is in a rigid car in an accident. A car is built so that the folding of its metal parts absorbs as much energy as possible. A rigid car will transfer all the impact to the driver.

  23. Now what remains is to bring this bone to Earth.
    I wonder what uses the person will make when the diamond will be very cheap???

    Start building diamond houses, maybe bunkers. In general, the whole construction will change, because smaller rods are needed to carry the loads
    Or to cover the ground of Gaza with diamonds, so that they will not be able to dig tunnels. 🙂
    Build submarines, tanks from diamonds
    A shell of machines, so that during an accident the front or shell will absorb the energy, and the driver will come out intact (so it will be like cars colliding 🙂 )
    I wasn't talking about electronics and conductivity at all

    You are invited to continue with the imagination...

  24. It's great that you publish marketing content. need to make a living. It's a shame that you only find out that it's marketing only after you enter, and that too in a small way. You probably need to show that people are accessing the marketing content to justify paying you.

    On the other hand, on a scientific website it is unpleasant to find out that the content is marketing only after I have entered the link and many times after I have already read because I was in a hurry to read an "article" and a poor little tag that signifies marketing escaped me

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