In the way we examine space, we have spent an enormous amount of time in this class focusing on stars of all varieties and their properties. The varieties in such stars include white dwarves, supergiants, neutron stars, among many others in the list of stellar evolution and in general existence. Rarely, if ever, do we find combinations of stars that result in stars that share multiple properties or reflect different varieties of star within one.
Recent astrophysicists have found that a very real phenomena exists where these stars may be able to be pinpointed as a star on the stellar map, particularly one known as the “Thorne-Zytkow object,” which shares the properties of a red supergiant star and a superdense neutron star. While these have been theorized in 1975 and many stars from then on have been speculated as having existed by observation, in January, the strongest example of one has shown up by an astronomer in Boulder. These stars are fascinating in that they are a result of a collision between these two stars, to the point where the fusion process inside of the red supergiant is interrupted due to the neutron star being “eaten” and settling inside the core of the supergiant, which would also result in a very specific chemical composition due to the massive shift in fusion processes that would result in not only a combination of the elements inside both the red supergiant and the neutron star, but also the new processes that exist to generate energy in this new creation. In this one in particular, there is a high existence of lithium, rubidium, and molybdenum.
What’s left to question after this existence has been theorized is naturally the collision and creation of other hybrid stars that would vastly alter the chemical processes and compositions of stars, as well as the way their generate energy and how such stars would form – questions for us to postulate and for scientists to attempt to solve.
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