Home PBS Space Time Season 2021 Episode 22

How An Extreme New Star Could Change All Cosmology

PBS Space Time · Season 2021 · Episode 22
A new white dwarf has been discovered (poetically named: ZTF J1901+1458) that’s doing some stuff that no white dwarf should ever be able to do. In fact, it has multiple properties that are so extreme that it almost certainly did NOT form in the way that we thought all white dwarfs formed. This one peculiar point of faint light may change our understanding of not just white dwarfs, but of all cosmology.

Episode Details

Air date, runtime, timezone, and episode position.

Season
2021
Episode
22
Air Date
03/Aug/2021
Air Time
12:00
Runtime
19 min

Overview

Episode summary.

A new white dwarf has been discovered (poetically named: ZTF J1901+1458) that’s doing some stuff that no white dwarf should ever be able to do. In fact, it has multiple properties that are so extreme that it almost certainly did NOT form in the way that we thought all white dwarfs formed. This one peculiar point of faint light may change our understanding of not just white dwarfs, but of all cosmology.

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