I stand corrected. I definitely missed the "floating alone in space" part...for some reason I got in my head there was a companion.
Re:Two-Faced Star Exposed
by danparsonson on Tuesday July 25, 2023 @12:54AM
(#36858049)
They did discuss that possibility, at least in the paper, and it was my first thought for an explanation, but I think they discounted it because it would require an unrealistic or impossible orbit.
I jumped to a similar conclusion. Not my best post.
Re:Two-Faced Star Exposed
by danparsonson on Tuesday July 25, 2023 @02:01AM
(#36858517)
Happens to the best of us :-)
1) We can only estimate gravitational fields remotely when objects are interacting, by measuring the time it takes them to orbit each other - the article specifically says that the object is "floating alone in space".
2) The paper (https://assets.researchsquare.com/files/rs-2029380/v1_covere...) discusses the possibility of a magnetic field being responsible for the two-sided effect, but doesn't mention that they specifically measured it. Apparently measurement is possible for large magnetic fields by looking for circular polarisation but I don't think they have found that in this case.
3) There is no fusion happening in a white dwarf - they glow with residual heat from the original star.
Wikipedia has a lot of detail in their article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_dwarf