NEW YELLOW-GREEN STAR IDENTIFIED

LONDON, OCTOBER 16 /SRNA–Reuters/ - Astronomers from the University of Warwick in England have for the first time identified a star with a chartreuse green glow in the constellation Draco, classified as WD J1330+6435 and located about 280 light-years from Earth.

"We first became interested in this white dwarf because fragments of planetary material fell onto its surface, enriching its outer layers with elements such as calcium, lithium and, in particular, sodium," said astrophysicist Mark Hollands of the University of Warwick, lead author of a study published in the specialist astronomy and geophysics journal RAS Techniques and Instruments.

The journal, published by the University of Oxford, notes that in ordinary stars, sodium absorbs light at a very specific wavelength in the orange part of the spectrum - the same shade that gives streetlights their characteristic color - and that filtering out this part of the spectrum makes the star’s otherwise white glow appear greenish.

"The end result is that sodium atoms no longer absorb light at just one very narrow orange wavelength, but instead absorb yellow, orange and some red wavelengths. This gives us a star with a chartreuse green glow, something that would not be possible in stars similar to the Sun," Hollands explained.

He noted that a star’s color depends on its temperature: cooler stars appear orange, the Sun and stars similar to it appear white, while the hottest stars are pale blue.

"However, white dwarfs follow a different rule - changes in their chemical composition over time can give some of them rarer colors," Hollands added.