A star that exploded like a nuclear bomb is still raising questions half a century later

The consequences of a thermonuclear explosion in a binary star system about 3,400 light years away has been witnessed by Hubble Space Telescope.

HM Sagittae, or HM Sge for short, is what is known as a symbiotic system, in which a white dwarf is eating with a friend red giant star The stolen material forms an accretion disk orbiting the white dwarf. If too much material falls from the disc onto the white dwarf at once, the pressure and temperature become so great that a thermonuclear explosion erupts on the surface of the white dwarf.

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