NASA Hubble Space Telescope’s Instagram page is worth spending time on since it has, literally, out-of-the-world posts that can make your jaw drop. The page got a new addition recently when NASA shared a picture of a dense cluster of scintillating stars. “Could dying stars hold the secret to looking younger?” wrote NASA in the caption. Flaunting a possibly big discovery, NASA shared some findings that Hubble Space Telescope recently unearthed.
Hubble telescope has shown that some dying stars, particularly, the white dwarfs, have an anti-ageing secret that makes them appear much younger than they actually are, NASA revealed. Amazingly, the secret to the white dwarfs’ anti-ageing regimen lies in a coating of Hydrogen that slows down their cooling so much that it ends up elongating their age by up to a whopping 1 billion years.
New evidence gathered by NASA’s Hubble Space Telescope suggests that white dwarf stars could continue to burn Hydrogen in the final stages of their lives, which in turn could cause them to appear more youthful than they actually are. NASA says that this discovery could have consequences for how astronomers measure the ages of star clusters, which contain the oldest known stars in the universe.
“New evidence from Hubble telescope suggests that white dwarf stars tend to continue to burn hydrogen in their final stages of life. This causes them to appear more youthful than they actually are,” NASA further explains in the caption.
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According to NASA, these findings can prove to be revolutionary as they will change the way astronomers evaluate the age of star clusters like the one in the picture. Star clusters contain some of the oldest stars to ever exist in the universe.
Earlier, the perception entailed that white dwarf stars are slowly dying burned-out stars with no nuclear fusion taking place on their surface. However, the new findings reveal that the white dwarfs can slow their ageing process by burning hydrogen on their surfaces.
The image uploaded about a day ago has, since then, garnered more than 1.24 lakh likes and has left netizens in awe of the visuals. “City of Stars,” one user wrote. Another said, “That is so beautiful.” Apart from the wonderstruck expressions, the comment box was filled with heart-eyes emojis by people who were speechless.
Stars dying is a common occurrence in the cosmos. Almost 98% of all the stars in the universe will end up becoming a white dwarf star, which includes our Sun as well. Earlier, the cooling process of the stars was considered a vital factor while calculating the age of the clusters. However, after this discovery, all previous age estimates might be inaccurate by as much as a billion years.
Now, an international group of astronomers has discovered the first evidence that white dwarfs can slow down their rate of ageing by burning Hydrogen on their surfaces.
