Jan 15, 2026 16:00:00

A star 730 light years away that cannot be explained by existing physics has been observed

by ESO/K. Iłkiewicz and S. Scaringi et al.

The European Southern Observatory (ESO) has reported the detection of a mysterious shock wave around

the binary star RXJ0528+2838, located about 730 light-years from Earth. The discovery of this shock wave overturns conventional astronomy wisdom, according to the ESO.

Astronomers surprised by mysterious shock wave around dead star | ESO
https://www.eso.org/public/news/eso2601/

The observations reported this time were made with the Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE), an extremely powerful visible-light spectrometer on board the Very Large Telescope (VLT) in the Atacama Desert in northern Chile.

by JL Dauvergne & G. Hüdepohl (atacamaphoto.com)/ESO

RXJ0528+2838 is a binary star system consisting of

a white dwarf and a companion star similar to the Sun. The white dwarf is a dense core left behind by a low-mass star at the end of its evolution, and it brightens by receiving gas from the companion star. It is generally believed that the gas transferred from the companion star forms an accretion disk around the white dwarf, and that this disk releases energy as it rotates.

As stars move through the galaxy, they can interact with the gas in interstellar space, creating a bow-shaped shock wave structure called a 'bow shock.' Bow shocks, typically seen in this type of binary star system, are thought to be created when gas blowing out from the central star's disk pushes interstellar gas aside.

However, the results of this study revealed that the magnetic field of the white dwarf in RXJ0528+2838 is extremely strong, at 42-45 megagauss (MG), and that this strong magnetic field is insufficient to form an accretion disk, making it impossible for existing astrophysics to explain the mechanism by which a giant bow shock forms.

by SO/K. Iłkiewicz and S. Scaringi et al.

Furthermore, the energy required to maintain the bow shock was found to be approximately 3.4 times the total energy that could be produced by the infall of all the material in RXJ0528+2838. Furthermore, it is estimated that the bow shock of RXJ0528+2838 has been continuously injecting energy for at least 1,000 years, which cannot be explained by a transient nova explosion. In other words, it is unclear how enough energy is generated to maintain the observed bow shock for more than 1,000 years.

The research team, because it cannot be explained by existing physics, suggests that there may be a powerful and overlooked energy loss mechanism related to the magnetic activity of the white dwarf as the power source of this mystery, and states that it may be a mechanism linked to magnetic activity, but that this remains merely a hypothesis. The research team argued that if similar disks can be systematically studied in the future and the conditions under which long-lived outflows are generated can be elucidated, a new energy escape route may be discovered that could affect the evolution of binary stars themselves.