'This has been one of the rare opportunities when the signs of aging could be directly observed in a star over human timescales,' Meridith Joyce said.
Astronomers have made what they describe as"rare" observations of an aging star in the process of dying—providing us with a fascinating glimpse into the eventual fate of our own sun.
"We anticipate our sun and T UMi will end their lives much more quietly and slowly compared with a supernova—a powerful and luminous explosion," Meridith Joyce, lead author of a study from The Australian National University, said in a statement.—the 1.2 billion-year-old star has been experiencing a series of pulses in its death throes, during which its size, brightness and temperature have varied hugely.
Over the past three decades, the team has been observing these pulses, giving a rare glimpse into the aging process of a star. Within the next few hundred thousand years, the authors estimate that T UMi will eventually become a white dwarf—the small, incredibly dense remnants of stars which have shed their outer layers, spent most of their hydrogen and helium fuel, and are gradually cooling as they reach the end of their lives.
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