'Born-again' star offers rare chance to watch stellar evolution in real time
2 days ago
- Astronomers confirmed Sakurai's Object, a born-again star, has entered a new evolutionary stage and is now a Wolf-Rayet star.
- The star's temperature has risen sixfold in 30 years, from Sun-like to about 27,000–36,000 Kelvin.
- This offers a rare opportunity to watch stellar evolution occur on human timescales.
- The star re-ignited in 1996 after a very late thermal pulse, expanding, cooling, and ejecting material into space.
- Observations using the Very Large Telescope revealed carbon and helium signatures and showed the star is reheating more gradually than some models predicted.
- Only two stars have been directly observed undergoing this rebirth: Sakurai's Object and V605 Aquilae.