AR star in the constellation Scorpius was the battleground between the two halves of the system - a red and a white dwarf. Last fires his second half-frequency radio waves that cause the bright flash on the surface of the second light.
«AR Scorpio was opened over 40 years ago, but no one suspected the true nature of this star until last May, when we examined it with a high-speed camera and telescope ULTRACAM William Herschel. We realized that we see something extraordinary in the first few minutes, "- said Tom Marsh from the University of Warwick (UK).
Marsh and his colleagues discovered is most unusual star system, parts of which are supported by extremely hostile relationship. Previously considered an ordinary variable star AR actually flashes like a beacon, flashing across the electromagnetic radiation and is expected to change the speed of its movement every two minutes.
As shown by further observations, in fact, AR is composed of two very unusual star - a white dwarf mass of 0.3 solar masses and a red dwarf star in the Sun 0.81. The white dwarf rotates very close orbit around a larger second star, making one revolution in four incomplete hours, occasionally obscuring it. This was the reason for entering this pair of stars in the number of variables stars in the 70's of last century.
White dwarf has unusually high speed rotation about its axis and a powerful magnetic field, whereby it periodically emits radio waves and beams of charged particles with their poles. The axis of rotation of this star is sometimes directed towards the second star.
As a result, every two minutes - the time of its revolution around its axis - a red dwarf for one moment fall under the bombardment of the white dwarf, participating in the original Star Wars.
According to astronomers, this behavior binary star is actually unique. It is not known of any other pair of stars, where something similar happened, the RIA "Novosti".
a source: https://newsland.com