ZTF J1813+4251 is a

binary star A binary star is a system of two stars that are gravitationally bound to and in orbit around each other. Binary stars in the night sky that are seen as a single object to the naked eye are often resolved using a telescope as separate stars, in wh ...

system including a sun-like star and

white dwarf A white dwarf is a stellar core remnant composed mostly of electron-degenerate matter. A white dwarf is very dense: its mass is comparable to the Sun's, while its volume is comparable to the Earth's. A white dwarf's faint luminosity comes fro ...

, co-orbiting every 51 minutes, about 3,000 light years away in the constellation of

Hercules Hercules (, ) is the Roman equivalent of the Greek divine hero Heracles, son of Jupiter and the mortal Alcmena. In classical mythology, Hercules is famous for his strength and for his numerous far-ranging adventures. The Romans adapted the Gr ...

. It is considered a

cataclysmic variable In astronomy, cataclysmic variable stars (CVs) are stars which irregularly increase in brightness by a large factor, then drop back down to a quiescent state. They were initially called novae (), since ones with an outburst brightness visible to ...

with the white dwarf pulling outer layers of hydrogen from the star onto itself. It has the shortest orbital period of all hydrogen-rich cataclysmic variable stars known. It is predicted that the orbital period will reach a minimum of 18 minutes within 75 million years as the system evolves. It was identified in 2022 by Kevin Burdge of

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the mo ...

using a computer algorithm that searched over 1,000 images from the

Zwicky Transient Facility The Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF, obs. code: I41) is a wide-field sky astronomical survey using a new camera attached to the Samuel Oschin Telescope at the Palomar Observatory in California, United States. Commissioned in 2018, it supersedes ...

, identifying stars that had brightness variability periods around one hour. Accretion Disk Binary System

References

External links

Astronomers find a “cataclysmic” pair of stars with the shortest orbit yet

* ttps://www.iflscience.com/-cataclysmic-pair-of-stars-with-shortest-known-orbit-discovered-65603 "Cataclysmic" Pair Of Stars With Shortest Known Orbit Discovered
Two Stars Orbiting Each Other Every 51 Minutes. This Can’t End Well
Cataclysmic variable stars Hercules (constellation) Astronomical objects discovered in 2022 {{multi-star-stub