Showing posts with label Dawn Before Nova. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dawn Before Nova. Show all posts

Monday, November 16, 2009

Dawn Before Nova

Will this dawn bring another nova? Such dilemmas might be pondered one day by future humans living on a planet orbiting a cataclysmic variable binary star system. Cataclysmic variables involve gas falling from a large star onto an accretion disk surrounding a massive but compact white dwarf star. Explosive cataclysmic events such as a dwarf nova can occur when a clump of gas in the interior