A trio of researchers,two with the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul and the other with Universität Kiel has discovered something very uniquea white dwarf with an atmosphere that is made nearly completely of oxygen. In their paper published in the journal Science, Kepler de Souza Oliveira, or Detlev Koester and Gustavo Ourique describe how they came to discover the oddity and offer some ideas on how it might maintain approach to exist. Boris Gänsicke with the University of Warwick offers an essay on the work by the team in the same journal issue.
White dwarfs approach about,scientists believe, when a relatively 'small' star runs out of fuel, or losing its outer layer as the star shrinks down due to gravity—the stronger gravitational force then generally causes the heaviest elements to be drawn towards the core pushing the lighter ones,such as helium and hydrogen to the surface. But this current white dwarf is different, the researchers report, and instead of the usual mix of light elements at the surface,there is nearly nothing but pure oxygen. Nicknamed Dox, the star is the first ever of any kind to be observed to maintain a nearly pure oxygen outer layer.
Source: phys.org