A team of German astronomers led by Professor Klaus Werner of the University of Tubingen has discovered a new kind of star which is said to be covered in the by-products of helium burning.
What makes these new kinds of stars special is the fact that their surface composition seems to be completely different from that of normal stars.
While normal stars have their surfaces composed of Hydrogen and helium, these new kinds have Carbon and Oxygen as their surface composition, both of which are the by-products of Helium burning.
These stars go one more step ahead in amazing us as according to researchers, they still have helium burning in their cores. This kind of behavior is completely atypical of these stars, generally being seen in more evolved kinds.
In an attempt to explain things, a group of astronomers from the University of La Plata and the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, led by Dr. Miller Bertolami have said that they believe these stars to be formed by a rare kind of stellar merger event between two white dwarf stars.
Dr. Miller Bertolami also said, "Usually, white dwarf mergers do not lead to the formation of stars enriched in carbon and oxygen. But we believe that, for binary systems formed with very specific masses, a carbon- and oxygen-rich white dwarf might be disrupted and end up on top of a helium-rich one, leading to the formation of these stars”.
No one knows the explanation for the existence of these stars to the full extent. Scientists say that they need more "refined models" before they are able to conclude anything.
Till then, these special kinds of stars are expected to remain a mystery to mankind.
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