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This star spins around itself once every 25 seconds

This star spins around itself once every 25 seconds

White Dwarf

Earth rotates around itself once a day. For Sun this duration is of 1 month. Other planets in our solar system have varying durations. But a single rotation in 25 seconds? That's some serious speed for a celestial body.

A white dwarf star has been found to perform this extreme space ballet. The star is named (rather heartlessly it would appear), LAMOST J0240+1952. It is 2000 lightyears away from Earth.

It is a white dwarf star. These stars are extremely dense. The star has size of Earth but has mass equal to the Sun. So much material packed in such a small space makes the surface gravity of the star ridiculously extreme. If a pebble is lifted from the surface of the star and dropped from a mere few feet, it would collide with the surface of the star at a speed equal to thousands of miles an hour! The white dwarf is located in Aries constellation.

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The massive rotation rate of this star was discovered on August 7 by astronomer Ingrid Pelisoli of the University of Warwick in Coventry, England. She and her team noticed a particular 'blip' from this star. The blip came every 25 seconds. It was subsequently found that the blip is due to rotation of the star around itself.

A red dwarf was found to be revolving around the white dwarf. The red dwarf is the reason why the white dwarf has such a mind boggling speed of rotation.