“We found something never seen before” – A dead star is producing a shock wave that shouldn’t exist

Stars can produce powerful shock waves when gas and dust streaming away from them collide with material in the surrounding space. Astronomers have now captured a striking example around the dead star RXJ0528+2838 using the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope (ESO's VLT).

The discovery is puzzling because, based on known mechanisms, this small stellar remnant should not be capable of producing the structure seen around it. The unexpected finding challenges current ideas about how dead stars exchange matter and energy with their surroundings.

"We found something never seen before and, more importantly, entirely unexpected," says Simone Scaringi, associate professor at Durham University, UK and co-lead author of the study published in Nature Astronomy .

"Our observations reveal a powerful outflow that, according to our current understanding, shouldn't be there," says Krystian Ilkiewicz, a postdoctoral researcher at the Nicolaus Copernicus Astronomical Center in Warsaw, Poland and study co-lead.