![]() ![]() About 97% of all stars are destined to become white dwarfs when they die," Caiazzo said. ![]() "White dwarfs form at the very end of a star's life. It rotates on its axis every 15 minutes - very fast considering these stars usually rotate every few hours to a few days. Janus is fairly massive for a white dwarf, with a mass 20% larger than that of our sun compressed into an object with a diameter half that of Earth. A light year is the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km). The star is located in our Milky Way galaxy about 1,300 light years from Earth in the direction of the Cygnus constellation. Moreover, Janus is the god of transition, and the white dwarf might be currently transitioning from having an atmosphere made of hydrogen to one made of helium," said Ilaria Caiazzo, a Caltech postdoctoral fellow in astrophysics and lead author of the study published this week in the journal Nature. "Janus is the Roman god with two faces, so we thought it was very appropriate. Scientists have observed a white dwarf star - a hot stellar remnant that is among the densest objects in the cosmos - that they have nicknamed Janus owing to the fact it has the peculiar distinction of being composed of hydrogen on one side and helium on the other. The ancient Roman god Janus was two-faced, literally - with one looking forward and another backward, representing transitions and duality. WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Some people are two-faced, figuratively speaking of course. ![]()
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