Scientists talked about the movement of dying stars in space

Stars similar to the Sun can receive about 10,000 small pulses at the end of their existence due to uneven emissions of matter. As a result, they are able to accelerate to about 1 km/s. This was reported on July 20 by the Science Daily portal.

As the sun-like star ages, it increases in size and turns into a red giant. Its outer layers gradually disappear into space, and the remaining dense core becomes a white dwarf. The new model shows that this process may occur much less evenly than previously thought.

According to astrophysicist Jim Fuller, clumps of matter are randomly ejected from the surface of an inflated star in different directions. Each such ejection, in accordance with Newton's third law, gives the celestial body a small impulse in the opposite direction.

Calculations show that in a few hundred thousand years, a star can experience about 10,000 such tremors. A single ejection changes its speed by only a few meters per second, but the random pulses do not fully compensate for each other. As a result, the white dwarf begins to move in one direction at a speed of about 1 km/s.

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The model can explain the observations of astronomer Karim El-Badri. Previously, he found that widely separated binary systems are less common after one of the stars turns into a white dwarf. If the speed of movement of the system components is lower than the received momentum, their gravitational coupling may collapse.

In some cases, the opposite scenario is also possible. A series of pulses can change the orbit of a dying star so that it collides with its companion. Such a merger can lead to an explosion. Searching for traces of such events in the future will allow us to verify the proposed model.

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Russian scientists have assessed the prospects of a new method for studying space weather

On July 7, astronomer, popularizer of astronomy and cosmonautics Alexander Kiselyov assessed the danger of abnormal solar activity. According to him, although a record number of flares will not necessarily lead to catastrophic consequences, the anomaly significantly increases the likelihood of coronal mass ejections.