Artist's concept of white dwarf being stripped of matter (IMAGE)

NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center

Artist's concept of white dwarf being stripped of matter

Caption

In this artist’s concept, matter is stripped from a white dwarf (sphere at lower right) orbiting within the innermost accretion disk surrounding 1ES 1927+654’s supermassive black hole. Astronomers developed this scenario to explain the evolution of rapid X-ray oscillations detected by ESA’s (European Space Agency) XMM-Newton satellite. ESA’s LISA (Laser Interferometer Space Antenna) mission, due to launch in the next decade, should be able to confirm the presence of an orbiting white dwarf by detecting the gravitational waves it produces.

Credit

NASA/Aurore Simonnet, Sonoma State University

Usage Restrictions

No restrictions.

License

Public Domain

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