http://phys.org/news/2014-04-sakurai-stellar-evolution-real.html
It's a star undergoing a final flash.
It's a star undergoing a final flash.
Stellar lifetimes are measured in billions of years, so changes in their appearance rarely take place on a human timescale. Thus an opportunity to observe a star passing from one stage of life to another on a timescale of months to years is very exciting, as there are only a very few examples known. One such star is Sakurai's Object (V4334 Sgr). First reported by a Japanese amateur astronomer in 1996 as a "nova-like object," Sakurai's Object had been only a few years before the faint central star of a planetary nebula. In the 1990's Sakurai's Object brightened by a factor of 10,000. This brightening has been attributed to a final helium shell flash. In this process the burned out core of the star at the center of the planetary nebula re-ignites.
Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2014-04-sakurai-stellar-evolution-real.html#jCp
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