A dead star has the fastest known spin rate of any star of its kind.
It's a white dwarf star that has an insane rotation rate of just 25 seconds. The previous record was held by CTCV J2056-3014, which had a spin rate of 29 seconds.
It has a spin rate of 33 seconds, which is similar to the one of the fast white dwarf, Aquarii.
J0240+1952 and AE Aquarii are very special. They're the only two stars we've ever found that are part of a class of white dwarfs called propeller stars.
Each star has a main sequence and a companion. The white dwarf's magnetic field causes the plasma to get flung out into space.
It is so extreme that the plasma is being flung out at speeds of up to 3,000 kilometers per second.
The University of Warwick in the UK says that the J2O2 will have completed several rotation in a short amount of time.
The rotation is so fast that the white dwarf needs an above average mass to stay together. The magnetic field starts to dominate as it gets closer to the white dwarf, but it is pulling material from its companion star. This type of gas picks up a lot of speed from this process, which propels it away from the star and into space.
A white dwarf star is like the Sun in that it can't get enough elements in its core. The core collapses into an object that shines bright with residual heat after it is ejected into space.
The stars are very small, around the size of Earth, but with a mass that is more than the Sun.
White dwarf stars often have a companion in a close vicinity, so close that material off of it erupts as hydrogen fusion in the white dwarf's atmosphere.
These are variable stars. The white dwarf may explode in a Type Ia supernova once it becomes unstable.
In the past it has slurped up enough material from its red dwarf companion to give it a hefty rotation speed boost. The white dwarf developed a magnetic field, but we're not sure if it was caused by the increased rotation rate or an internal dynamo.
The magnetic field repels the incoming plasma and most of it goes into space. A small amount falls onto the white dwarf, where it flows towards the magnetic poles, causing a bright glow that can be used to measure the star's rotation rate.
The researchers want to see if the two systems exhibit the same behavior as Aquarii's spin is slowing down at a high rate. That will tell us more about these systems.
It's the second time we've found one of these magnetic propeller systems, so we now know it's not a unique occurrence. The magnetic propeller mechanism is a generic property that operates in the two binaries, if the circumstances are right.
The second discovery is more important than the first because you can test it to see if the model works. The model works well and it was predicted that the star had to be spinning fast.
The research has been published in a journal.
