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Rapidly Shrinking Binary - eRASSU J0608
September 27 , 2026
6 hrs 0 min
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- Indian-led astronomers identified eRASSU J060839.5–704014 (eRASSU J0608), a pair of white dwarfs orbiting each other in about 6.2 minutes.
- It is an ultracompact double-white-dwarf binary whose orbit is shrinking at about 4.7 × 10⁻¹¹ seconds per second.
- White dwarfs are dense remains of stars like the Sun after they use up their nuclear fuel and lose their outer layers.
- Material from one white dwarf may directly hit the other through direct-impact accretion, producing strong X-ray emission.
- NASA NICER, Einstein Probe and European Space Agency (ESA) XMM-Newton observations were used to study the system for about 3.5 years.
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