Hubble discovers four white dwarf stars hidden near our solar system

While the universe contains countless stars, many of them evade even the most powerful telescopes — particularly faint stars obscured by the glare of brighter companions. Now, the Hubble Space Telescope has identified four white dwarf stars hiding remarkably close to our solar system.

According to a study published in Oxford Academic, the newly discovered white dwarfs are located in four binary star systems: G 203-47, GJ 207.1, LHS 1817 and Wolf 1130. In each system, a white dwarf orbits a red dwarf companion. The intense light of the red dwarfs had previously masked the presence of their dimmer partners.

Using Hubble's Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS), researchers detected the distinct ultraviolet signatures of the white dwarfs. Since white dwarfs emit more ultraviolet radiation than red dwarfs, this technology allowed them to be identified separately.

The study further revealed that the four newly discovered white dwarfs have temperatures ranging from 5,300 to 6,300 Kelvin. Their relatively cool nature made them difficult to detect using conventional observation methods. Reliance solely on visible light would have led to estimates of their temperatures being 5 to 8 percent higher than their actual values.

Among them, G 203-47 is located just 7.6 parsecs from Earth. Scientists had suspected the presence of a white dwarf there for nearly two decades, and new observations have finally confirmed it. It now ranks as the ninth closest white dwarf to the solar system.

Astronomers believe several more white dwarfs may be lurking near the solar system. Applying the same observation method to nearby red dwarfs could uncover an additional nine to ten more white dwarfs in the future.

Source: The Times of India