Making waves.Locked in a deadly embrace, two white dwarf stars may be the strongest source of gravitational waves now flooding our galaxy. The stars appear to be separated by just one-fifth the Earth-moon distance. New X-ray observations of the duo, which resides roughly 1,600 light-years from Earth, indicate that the dwarfs take just under 5.5 minutes to orbit each other and are the most-compact binary-star system known. NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory Chandra X-ray Observatory U.S. X-ray space telescope. It was named after astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar and was launched into orbit in 1999. Its mirror, with an aperture of 1.2 m (4 ft) and a focal length of 10 m (33 ft), produces unprecedented resolution. also found that the pair's orbital period is declining by 1.2 milliseconds each year. According to Einstein's theory of gravitation Noun 1. theory of gravitation - (physics) the theory that any two particles of matter attract one another with a force directly proportional to the product of their masses and inversely proportional to the square of the distance between them , the white dwarfs are spiraling toward each other because they're losing energy in the form of gravitational grav·i·ta·tion n. 1. Physics a. The natural phenomenon of attraction between physical objects with mass or energy. b. The act or process of moving under the influence of this attraction. 2. waves-invisible ripples in space-time that cause objects with mass to bob up and down. Tod Strohmayer of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center The Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) is a major NASA space research laboratory established on May 1, 1959 as NASA's first space flight center. GSFC employs approximately 10,000 civil servants and contractors, and is located approximately 6.5 miles northeast of Washington, D.C. in Greenbelt, Md., and his colleagues calculate that the white dwarf twosome, dubbed RX J0806.3+1527, is pouring out 100 times as much energy in the form of gravitational waves as the sun emits as electromagnetic radiation electromagnetic radiation, energy radiated in the form of a wave as a result of the motion of electric charges. A moving charge gives rise to a magnetic field, and if the motion is changing (accelerated), then the magnetic field varies and in turn produces an . Strohmayer notes that the intense waves will be prime targets for the Laser Interferometer interferometer: see interference under Interference as a Scientific Tool. See also virtual telescope. An instrument that measures the wavelengths of light and distances. Space Antenna, a gravitational-wave detector scheduled for launch early next decade. The Chandra observations tighten previous estimates of the orbital period of the dwarf system, Strohmayer says. Even so, the new study doesn't rule out a less likely explanation for the measured period. The waxing and waning of X rays observed by Chandra could represent the spin period of just one of the dwarfs rather than the orbital period of the pair.--R.C. |
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