Latest News in the Business and Financial World

Thursday, April 15, 2021
Log in
  • Home
  • Company News & Financials
  • OTC Markets
  • Tech & Science
  • Health & LifeStyle
  • About WS OTC
    • Analysts & Contributors
    • Contact Us
    • Advertising
    • Feedback
    • Privacy Policy GDPR
  • Mobile
  • Latest News
    • New Theories Explain the Disappearance of the Mayan Civilization
    • What Happens If Coral Reefs Die?
    • Monsanto Loses Lawsuit for its Herbicide Products
    • Mankind (MNKD) shares Plunge after FDA Approves Afrezza, inhaled Insulin for Diabetes patients
    • Psychologists Confirm that Violent Video Games Boost Aggressiveness
    • World of Warcraft: Warlords of Draenor Release Date on Nov 13
    • iPass Global Hotspot Map Unveils Worldwide Wi-fi Coverage

Pages

  • About Wall Street OTC
  • Advertising
  • Analysts & Contributors
  • Contact
  • Feedback
  • Mobile
  • Privacy Policy GDPR
  • Terms of Service

Recent Posts

  • SF Hospital Slaps New Parents with $19K Bill for Baby Treatment
  • Furious Trump Blasts Harley-Davidson for Moving Production Overseas
  • Warning! MRI Machines Could Poison You
  • Flight Attendants More Likely to Get Certain Cancers
  • More Red Meat Allergy Cases Related to Lone Star Tick Bites

Newly Discovered White Dwarf: An Earth-Sized Diamond

Jun 25, 2014 By Kevin Calderon 1 Comment

Email, RSS Follow

It is the size of the Earth, around 11 billion years old, and is made entirely from diamond. The Dwarf Star is the coldest ever detected. A team of astronomers have identified the coldest, faintest white dwarf star estimated to be around 11-billion-years-old.

And it is so cold that it has turned into crystallized carbon, making it the biggest bling in the universe. It has been spotted 900 light-years away on the same pathway to the constellation Aquarius. University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee’s Professor David Kaplan said, “It really is a remarkable object.These things are out there, but because they are so dim, they are very difficult to find.”

Using the National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s Green Bank Telescope and Very Long Baseline Array, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee have identified an ancient stellar remnant believed to be so cold that its carbon has crystallised, forming an earth-sized diamond in space.

White dwarfs are the stars which are coming to the end of their life and slowly cool and fade over billions of years. Researchers have worked out the dwarf star would be no more than a comparatively cool 3,000 degrees Kelvin, around 2,700 Celsius.

White dwarfs are the extremely dense end-states of stars like our Sun that have collapsed to form an object approximately the size of Earth. Composed mostly of carbon and oxygen, white dwarfs slowly cool and fade over billions of years. The object in this new study is likely the same age as the Milky Way, approximately 11 billion years old.

Pulsars are rapidly spinning neutron stars, the superdense remains of massive stars that have exploded as supernovas. As neutron stars spin, lighthouse-like beams of radio waves, streaming from the poles of its powerful magnetic field, sweep through space. When one of these beams sweeps across Earth, radio telescopes can capture the pulse of radio waves.

The pulsar companion to this white dwarf, dubbed PSR J2222-0137, was the first object in this system to be detected. It was found using the GBT by Jason Boyles, then a graduate student at West Virginia University in Morgantown.

These first observations revealed that the pulsar was spinning more than 30 times each second and was gravitationally bound to a companion star, which was initially identified as either another neutron star or, more likely, an uncommonly cool white dwarf. The two were calculated to orbit each other once every 2.45 days.

The pulsar was then observed over a two-year period with the VLBA by Adam Deller, an astronomer at the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (ASTRON). These observations pinpointed its location and distance from Earth.

Knowing its location with such high precision and how bright a white dwarf should appear at that distance, the astronomers believed they should have been able to observe it in optical and infrared light.

Remarkably, neither the Southern Astrophysical Research (SOAR) telescope in Chile nor the 10-meter Keck telescope in Hawaii was able to detect it.

“Our final image should show us a companion 100 times fainter than any other white dwarf orbiting a neutron star and about 10 times fainter than any known white dwarf, but we don’t see a thing,” said Bart Dunlap, a graduate student at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and one of the team members. “If there’s a white dwarf there, and there almost certainly is, it must be extremely cold.”

The researchers calculated that the white dwarf would be no more than a comparatively cool 3,000 degrees Kelvin (2,700 degrees Celsius). Our Sun at its center is about 5,000 times hotter.

Astronomers believe that such a cool, collapsed star would be largely crystallized carbon, not unlike a diamond. Other such stars have been identified and they are theoretically not that rare, but with a low intrinsic brightness, they can be deucedly difficult to detect. Its fortuitous location in a binary system with a neutron star enabled the team to identify this one.

A paper describing these results is published in the Astrophysical Journal.

Email, RSS Follow
The following two tabs change content below.
  • Bio
  • Latest Posts

Kevin Calderon

Kevin is a content-crafter at Wallstreet OTC specializing in editorial and news. He promised us that he will keep his articles short but he always seem to stop only when the character count maximum.

Latest posts by Kevin Calderon (see all)

  • Scientists Detect A New Species Of Jurassic Ancestor Of The Crocodile - Oct 3, 2017
  • The Wombats Have Giant Ancestors That Used To Migrate Annually - Sep 28, 2017
  • Coffee And Bees Are Both Tied And Dependent On The Climate - Sep 13, 2017

Filed Under: Tech & Science Tagged With: 11 billion years old., ASTRON, Earth-Sized Diamond, Long Baseline Array, National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Green Bank Telescope, white dwarf star

Subscribe to Blog via Email

Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

Join 72 other subscribers

Mom holding newborn's hands

SF Hospital Slaps New Parents with $19K Bill for Baby Treatment

Jun 29, 2018 By Anne-Marie Jackson Leave a Comment

Harley-Davidson biker

Furious Trump Blasts Harley-Davidson for Moving Production Overseas

Jun 28, 2018 By Anne-Marie Jackson Leave a Comment

MRI machine

Warning! MRI Machines Could Poison You

Jun 27, 2018 By Anne-Marie Jackson Leave a Comment

Flight Attendants More Likely to Get Certain Cancers

Jun 27, 2018 By Anne-Marie Jackson Leave a Comment

Lone star tick sitting on a succulent leaf

More Red Meat Allergy Cases Related to Lone Star Tick Bites

Jun 26, 2018 By Anne-Marie Jackson Leave a Comment

Time magazine cover

Time Admits Sobbing Cover Girl Was Not Separated from Parents

Jun 26, 2018 By Anne-Marie Jackson Leave a Comment

Sunshine and green leaves

Vitamin D Deficiency Could Boost Risk of Lung Disease

Jun 25, 2018 By Anne-Marie Jackson Leave a Comment

Green-light laser pointer

Greek Boy’s Retina Severely Damaged by Laser Pointer

Jun 22, 2018 By Anne-Marie Jackson Leave a Comment

Red Tesla car

Tesla Suing ‘Whistleblower’ over Data Theft

Jun 21, 2018 By Anne-Marie Jackson Leave a Comment

Boiled eggs and mayonnaise

Eating too Clean Can Lead to Orthorexia

Jun 20, 2018 By Anne-Marie Jackson Leave a Comment

NYC mayor Bill de Blasio

NYC Will Allow People to Smoke Pot in Public

Jun 20, 2018 By Anne-Marie Jackson Leave a Comment

A kitten and a puppy sleeping in a bed while hugging each other

Who Is Smarter Between Cats and Dogs? Researchers Have an Answer (Study)

Jun 19, 2018 By Anne-Marie Jackson Leave a Comment

Orthodox church in Greece

Being Religious Is Tied to Longer Lifespan, Study

Jun 19, 2018 By Anne-Marie Jackson Leave a Comment

Bacon and eggs for breakfast

How Does the Keto Diet Work?

Jun 18, 2018 By Anne-Marie Jackson Leave a Comment

Related Articles

  • A kitten and a puppy sleeping in a bed while hugging each other

    Who Is Smarter Between Cats and Dogs? Researchers Have an Answer (Study)

    Jun 19, 2018
  • Pluto and other transneptunian objects on a scale

    The Icy Transneptunian Objects Are Not Proof that Planet Nine Exists

    Jun 5, 2018
  • Sunny day

    Days Are Getting Longer as Moon Drifts Farther Away

    Jun 5, 2018
  • Coronal mass ejection

    NASA Scientist Building Solar Probe: ‘I See God’s Hand in the Wonders of Space’

    May 30, 2018
  • Steam Link device next to its box

    Apple Rejects Steam Link from the App Store Due to Unspecified Business Conflicts

    May 25, 2018
  • Two-headed deer

    Two-Headed Deer found in Minnesota Forest Baffles Scientists

    May 16, 2018
  • Woman watching the sea

    Hawaii Inching Closer to Banning Sunscreen

    May 9, 2018
  • Cows grazing

    In the Next 200 Years, Cows Will Be the Largest Mammals Left (Study)

    Apr 20, 2018
  • Nintendo Switch Ad

    Nintendo Switch Beats Wii U in Sales during Holiday Quarter

    Feb 1, 2018
  • Geminid Meteor Shower in Rural America

    December Meteor Shower Could Be the Most Spectacular This Year

    Dec 16, 2017

Categories

  • Business
  • Company News & Financials
  • Diversified Financial
  • Entertainment
  • Featured
  • Health & LifeStyle
  • Micro Cap
  • Mid Cap
  • National News
  • Nature
  • OTC Exchange
  • OTC Markets
  • OTC Research
  • Science
  • Small Cap
  • Sports
  • Tech & Science
  • U.S.
  • Uncategorized
  • Wall Street
  • World
  • World Indexes

Copyright © 2021 wallstreetotc.com

About · Privacy Policy · Sitemap · Terms of Service · Contact