Star Duet Spawns Ripples in Spacetime ⚡ экспресс
The ATLAS J1013-4516 system has been discovered: a double white dwarf with an orbital period of 8.56 minutes — faster than boiling an egg. Here, one star siphons helium onto the other's accretion disk. Observations over 10 years revealed an acceleration of rotation (Pdot = minus 1.6×10⁻¹² s/s) — the orbit is shrinking due to gravitational waves and mass transfer. This allows us to study the star's response to mass loss. Analysis predicts that the LISA gravitational-wave observatory will be able to confidently detect this source, opening a new window into the evolution of close binaries.
Astronomers have found a pair of stars whose dance speeds up each year. These are white dwarfs — cooled-down remnants of suns the size of Earth. One dancer steals helium from its partner, swirling it into a sparkling ribbon. Their orbit shrinks, and gravitational waves ripple into space — like circles on water.
Every 8.6 minutes, the stars stage mini-eclipses, taking turns blocking each other. Precise brightness measurements showed: once a year, the orbit shortens by a millionth of a second. Over a decade of observations, light analysis confirmed that the disk around the star is helium. The energy carried away by waves outshines dozens of suns.
In millions of years, this duet will merge into a single star — a neutron star or even a black hole. The future LISA detector will hear the final chords of their dance in just four years of observation, as Kip Thorne predicted.
🎯 If an observer were a hundred kilometers from this system, they would see darkness fall every 8.5 minutes — one star briefly hides the other.