Astronomers have finally put Einstein’s theory of relativity to the test by weighing a white dwarf using the Hubble Space Telescope. The isolated white dwarf, called LAWD 37, was measured by observing its gravitational lensing effect as it passed in front of a distant bright star. The light from the background star bent around the nearby white dwarf, causing the star to appear to shift ever so slightly in the sky – an effect that Hubble could detect with incredible precision. What is Dwarf Star? Many of the main sequence stars are Dwarf.
This groundbreaking study of Weighing a White Dwarf, published in the March issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, confirms astronomers’ predictions about the mass of white dwarfs. The research team, led by University of California Santa Cruz astronomer Peter McGill, used positioning data from the European Space Agency’s Gaia mission to predict the exact moment LAWD 37 would pass in front of the distant star.
Ghostly white dwarfs are the remnants of dead stars that have lost their outer layers and left behind their cores. Made of degenerate matter, a strange type of ultra-compressed gas, these white dwarfs are of great interest to scientists who are trying to understand this mysterious substance.
The team’s calculation, based on the distant star’s slight movement in the sky, showed that the white dwarf is approximately 56% as massive as the sun. This measurement agrees with existing models and predictions for what’s going on inside these strange remnants.
Located only 15 light-years from Earth, LAWD 37 has been a popular subject of study for many years. With this new discovery, the team is already observing another white dwarf, LAWD 66, and will continue to watch it until they have enough information to measure its mass in 2024, uncovering yet another piece of the puzzle of these ghostly celestial objects. What is Binary Star?
“These events are rare, and the effects are tiny,” said McGill in a NASA statement. “For instance, the size of our measured offset is like measuring the length of a car on the Moon as seen from Earth.” This incredibly precise measurement took years of observations with the Hubble Space Telescope to acquire, but the results are worth it as they provide new insights into the universe and confirm Einstein’s theory of relativity.
In conclusion, the latest discovery of the first ever weighed white dwarf is a milestone in the field of astronomy and provides valuable information about the strange, ultra-dense matter that makes up these dead stars. With the help of the James Webb Space Telescope, scientists hope to make many more groundbreaking discoveries in the future.