New Delhi. The latest and surprising discovery related to the universe has forced astronomers to think. A glowing nebula has been spotted in the universe around a white dwarf star named RXJ0528Plus2838, about 731 light years away from Earth. This nebula appears like a rainbow. This discovery is surprising because white dwarf stars are generally considered ‘dead stars’, in which there is no active process of energy production. Despite this, a mysterious ‘bow shock’ has been seen around this star that has been forming for the last 1000 years, which has challenged the astronomical theories till now. According to astronomy, when stars like the Sun completely exhaust their fuel, they shrink and become white dwarf stars. Nuclear fusion stops in these stars, due to which they are considered quiet and inactive. RXJ0528Plus2838 is also similar in size to Earth, but has the same mass as the Sun.
Under normal circumstances, such stars do not exhibit any special brightness or activity, but the bright circle visible around this star has become a puzzle for scientists. This glowing ring is a ‘bow shock’ created by the collision of gas and dust, which is usually seen around fast-moving active celestial bodies. Scientists at Durham University say that this star neither has any energy generating disk nor any obvious source that can maintain this brightness for such a long period. Despite this the structure has remained stable for over a millennium, which makes it even more mysterious. Scientists have considered a very powerful magnetic field as a possible reason for this.
It is estimated that the magnetic field of this white dwarf star is pulling the material coming out of its companion star directly towards its surface without any disk. This flow is generating energy by colliding with the gas and dust present in space, due to which it is forming bow shock. Although according to current theories such flow can last only for a maximum of 100 years, here this process has been going on for ten times longer than that. According to Christian Ilkiewicz, a scientist at the Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center in Poland, this could be a sign of some unknown astronomical system, which is yet to be understood.
