Note to users. If you're seeing this message, it means that your browser cannot find this page's style/presentation instructions -- or possibly that you are using a browser that does not support current Web standards. Find out more about why this message is appearing, and what you can do to make your experience of our site the best it can be.
Science Signaling - Call For Papers

Site Tools

  • AAAS
  • Subscribe
  • Feedback

Site Search

Search Advanced

Science 11 October 2002:
Vol. 298. no. 5592, p. 319
DOI: 10.1126/science.298.5592.319f
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

This Week in Science

In some binary stars systems, a white dwarf accretes mass from a larger companion. If the hydrogen being accreted onto the surface of the white dwarf reaches a critical abundance, it can explode in a thermonuclear outburst that we observe as a nova. Hernanz and Sala (p. 393) used XMM-Newton to observe the nova, V2487 Oph, which exploded in 1998. The x-ray emission was characteristic of normal accretion, indicating that the binary accretion has unexpectedly returned to its typical state in the short span of 2.7 years after the explosion. The data also correlate with an x-ray-emitting source detected by ROSAT in 1990 and thus provide a rare glimpse of the nova before outburst.




ADVERTISEMENT
Click Me!

ADVERTISEMENT
Click Me!

To Advertise     Find Products

Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)