Kepler Watches White Dwarf Warp Spacetime

astroengine writes "The Kepler space telescope's prime objective is to hunt for small worlds orbiting distant stars, but that doesn't mean it's not going to detect some extreme relativistic phenomena along the way. While monitoring a red dwarf star — designated KOI-256 — astronomers detected a dip in starlight in the Kepler data. But it wasn't caused by an exoplanet. After some careful detective work, the researchers found that the red dwarf was actually in orbit around a binary partner — a white dwarf. As the white dwarf passed in front of the red dwarf, the starlight was enhanced by microlensing — a phenomenon caused by an intense gravitational field focusing light from behind. This had the counter-intuitive result of causing the starlight to dim when the white dwarf passed behind the red dwarf and then brighten as the white dwarf passed in front. This is one of the first discoveries of a binary partner through microlensing. 'Only Kepler could detect this tiny, tiny effect,' said Doug Hudgins, Kepler program scientist at NASA Headquarters, Washington. 'But with this detection, we are witnessing Einstein's theory of general relativity at play in a far-flung star system.'"

Comments

Anticipation

[damm0]

Since the current Kepler has produced stunning science, I sure hope they put another one up when this one conks out thanks to losing the last of its gyroscopes. It's a shame that Kepler is facing a crash just as it is hitting stride.

Re:FTL travel = impossible

[smaddox]

It's entirely true that faster than light travel is forbidden by general relativity. However, geometries with closed timelike curves, which can behave very much like time-machines, are not forbidden. It remains to be seen if such curves can be created and controlled. If they can, then a more complete model would be needed to include the effects of such phenomenon. As it stands, such curves could behave in several ways. In one formulation, self consistency would always be required. In another, such curves could be through another dimension, leading to self-inconsistent histories.

Most importantly, closed timelike curves are sufficiently rare that we have not observed natural occurrences. So, although such possibilites are interesting to consider, they are, ultimately, far beyond our current technologies.

thought it was a tv show revue

[Nyder]

till i realized it was white dwarf, not Red Dwarf...

Yes

[maroberts]

Ye cannae change the laws o' physics

Where is Intrepid Imaginaut?

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe we can use imagination to move white dwarfs around to create dark matter bridges between the stars?

Re:Laws of Physics

[AlecC]

I think that Kepler is looking only at stars in our galaxy, a few hundred or thousand light years away/ago, so the time ago is not that great - within prehistory if not history, We can be pretty confident that laws of physics have not changed much since mammals evolved. This star is apparently 1,828 light years away,

Re:FTL travel = impossible

[AlecC]

But, for example, the Alcubierre drive would allow us to travel to the stars in reasonable subjective time without FTL travel. If it could be built (manipulating multiple Jupiter-sized masses is currently a bit of a problem).

A question for the Astronomers

[OzPeter]

Not related to TFA per se, but from what I am understanding of exoplanet spotting is that it is predicated on a star and planet pair being observed being on an orbital plane of which Kepler can observe the edge. As otherwise how would the star light be seen to dim/brighten. Is this a fair statement? And if so does that mean that we are only capable (at the moment - I'm sure the future Lunar observatories will change things) of discovering exoplanets that lie on a plane whose edge points to Earth? And are the orbital planes of exoplanets parallel to our own solar system, or are they distributed all over the place?

I want to know for both the science, plus pretty well every science fiction book I have read has the protagonists entering planetary systems along the orbital plane (except for the sneaky bad guys who attack from above or below).

Re:A question for the Astronomers

[wbr1]

This method of detecting exoplanets is called transit detection, and does indeed require that the solar system be edge on in relation to our view: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exoplanet#Detection_methods
So does the doppler method, but I believe there can be a little more difference in the angle, as a doppler shift is slightly easier to measure than a bightness shift, but I am not an expert, I just think I read that somewhere.
Also, IIRC, the astrometry method, which is not very useful requires the solar system to be at about a 90 degree angle in relation to ours.

Re:A question for the Astronomers

[tgd]

BTW, #2 is why this is so hard, looking out at our galaxy, it's crowded out there!

For an 'On Earth Analogy', it would be like trying to spot a specific, individual tree in the most densely populated forest on earth, from Mars(or thereabouts).

IIRC, there's not particularly good evidence that the plane upon which planets form have anything other than a loose association to the plane of the galaxy. (And, they wouldn't need to be much off from it for a planet to almost never pass in front of the star. If you were looking at our sun along the plane of Pluto's orbit, the odds are almost zero that you're at the exact position in which the other planets are going to transit the star -- in almost any direction, the point the two planes cross will be to one side or the other of the star.

But IANAA.

Re:A question for the Astronomers

[athmanb]

By the way your analogy is very wrong. Because while there are indeed a lot of stars, they are also quite far away. An average star (diameter 10^6 kilometers) at 1000 light years (10^17 kilometers) distance is merely 10^-9 degrees across. To fill the entire night sky with stars you'd need 10^22 stars at that distance which is about how many of them exist in the entire universe. In fact it's statistically quite impossible for stars to actually cover each other.

Sci-Fact

[BlacKSacrificE]

I can't help but notice that as our technology becomes more and more advanced, the narrative gets closer to and more interchangeable with sci-fi..

The starships prime objective is to hunt for small worlds orbiting distant stars, but that doesn't mean it's not going to detect some extreme relativistic phenomena along the way. While monitoring a red dwarf star — designated KOI-256 — the crew detected a dip in starlight in the Kepler data. But it wasn't caused by an exoplanet. After some careful detective work, flight astrophysicist Lt. Slarti B. Artfast reported that the red dwarf was actually in orbit around a binary partner — a white dwarf.

I swear, this is how I read 80% of the astronomical articles I come across.

Re:Laws of Physics

[mabhatter654]

The micro lens effect is interesting because observing it proves Einstien's theory that mass and gravity "warp" space and time. My kid was watching history channel about this just last week... It was incredibly hard to find an event that could prove the theory true, AND take measurements with 1910-era equipment.... This was THE meal or break observation for Einstien's theory of General Relativity.
And now we have telescopes that find these events "just lying around" the galaxy.