{"id":229736,"date":"2026-01-12T12:07:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-12T12:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/229736\/"},"modified":"2026-01-12T12:07:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-12T12:07:08","slug":"space-breakthrough-as-mysterious-shockwave-discovered-around-dead-star-for-first-time-in-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/229736\/","title":{"rendered":"Space breakthrough as mysterious shockwave discovered around dead star for first time in history"},"content":{"rendered":"

A mysterious shockwave has been discovered around a dead star for the first time in history.<\/p>\n

With images taken by Muse, an instrument on ESO’s Very Large Telescope, the dead star RXJ0528+2838 can be seen with shockwaves around it.<\/p>\n

A star dies when the core runs out of nuclear fuel, destabilising the outward pressure to balance its inward gravity.<\/p>\n

As for a white dwarf, as RXJ0528+2838 is, it describes the core left behind after a star has died.<\/p>\n

It no longer generates energy or heat, but continues to shine from residual heat and will slowly cool over billions of years.<\/p>\n

A white dwarf is usually a similar size to Earth.<\/p>\n

Dead stars don’t have the internal mechanisms to generate large-scale shock waves because they have exhausted their nuclear fuel. The only shockwaves typically occur during a supernova.<\/p>\n

But, scientists have found that, as the dead star RXJ0528+2838 moves through space, it creates a so-called bow shock as the surrounding material is pushed away.<\/p>\n

\"\\u200bVLT<\/p>\n

VLT image of a dead star creating a shock wave as it moves through space<\/p>\n

| <\/p>\n

ESO\/K Ilkiewicz and S. Scaringi et al<\/p>\n

A bow shock refers to a curved shockwave that forms in front of an object that is travelling at supersonic speed through a gas, plasma, or liquid.<\/p>\n

This particular bow shock was captured in 2024.<\/p>\n

Structures like this one are typically caused by a strong outflow from the star.<\/p>\n

However, in the case of RXJ0528+2838, no known mechanism could be causing the outflow.<\/p>\n

\"VLT<\/p>\n

VLT image of a dead star creating a shock wave as it moves through space<\/p>\n

| <\/p>\n

ESO\/K. Ilkiewicz and S. Scaringi et al<\/p>\n

When a star moves through space, it can push away nearby material, creating a bow shock, which in the image is glowing in red, green and blue.<\/p>\n

For RXJ0528+2838, the red, green and blue glows represent hydrogen, nitrogen and oxygen.<\/p>\n

These shocks are usually produced by a strong outflow expelled from the star.<\/p>\n

However, in the case of RXJ0528+2838, astronomers discovered that the shock wave cannot be explained by any known mechanism.<\/p>\n

\"Wide-field<\/p>\n

Wide-field view (PanSTARRS) of the area of the sky around the star RXJ0528+2838<\/p>\n

| <\/p>\n

PanSTARRS<\/p>\n

Some hidden energy source, perhaps magnetic fields, could be the answer to this mystery.<\/p>\n

Photos have also been taken from the PanSTARRS survey and the Digitised Sky Survey (DSS), both showing the region of the sky around the dead star.<\/p>\n

Other footage shows a wide view of the night sky in visible light, transitioning into an image from the Digitised Sky Survey (DSS) and then the PanSTARRS survey, also in visible light.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A mysterious shockwave has been discovered around a dead star for the first time in history. With images…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":229737,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[111,139,69,147,392],"class_list":["post-229736","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-science","tag-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229736","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=229736"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/229736\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/229737"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=229736"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=229736"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=229736"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}