Star with atmosphere of oxygen is discovered

[Lou Newton]

Astronomers have discovered the first star with an almost pure-oxygen atmosphere

• Peter Dockrill, Science Alert

Shutterstock

Artist's impression of a white-dwarf star.
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Scientists have identified a new kind of star that up until this point had only been considered hypothetically: an ancient sun that has lived so long, its outermost layer is now composed almost entirely of pure oxygen.
When relatively small stars — those with less than 10 times the mass of our Sun — get close to the end of their lifespan, they shed their outer layers and become what are called white dwarfs.

Under high gravity, the heaviest elements descend into the star's dense core, while lighter elements such as hydrogen and helium rise to the surface.

At least, that's what usually happens. This star, dubbed SDSS J124043.01+671034.68, bucks the trend, with astronomers discovering its outer atmosphere is essentially greater than 99.99 percent oxygen.
Only traces of other elements have been detected, including neon, magnesium, and silicon, but as for the hydrogen and helium you'd expect to find dominating the surface, there's no sign.

It's a puzzle for the team that found it, led by Souza Oliveira Kepler from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Brazil. "What happened to all these light elements?" he told William Herkewitz at Popular Mechanics. "How did they all get stripped away?"

The answer isn't entirely clear, but astronomers have long speculated that elements being stripped from a star's surface over time could be a possibility. If that's what's happened here, SDSS J124043.01+671034.68 (or 'Dox' as the researchers have nicknamed it) is the first evidence of the phenomenon taking place.

In any case, this oxygen-dominated star is a true one-of-a-kind in terms of the solar bodies we know about, being the only star among some 32,000 white dwarfs with such a pristine oxygen atmosphere.

(Note from Lou: That is 32,000 known white dwarfs - there are probably billions of them, but they are only the diameter of the earth and so are not possible for us to see most of them from the earth)

"This white dwarf was incredibly unexpected," Kepler says. "And because we had no idea anything like it could even exist, that made it all the more difficult to find."

But how did the other elements get stripped away? Nobody knows for sure, but Kepler and his colleagues have a couple of ideas. It's possible that Dox could be part of a binary star system, and that interactions with another star in the system somehow peeled away its other atmospheric elements, exposing an oxygen envelope underneath.

Alternatively, something within the star, such as a massive pulse of burning carbon at Dox's core, might have flared outwards, eliminating lighter elements on the surface.

We won't understand until we learn more about these kinds of rare stars, but the great thing about the discovery of Dox is it's already reshaping what we know about stellar evolution — particularly with a view to how binary systems could impact the development of the stars moving within them.

"I think the main problem is that we have dedicated the last 50 years to [calculating] the evolution of stars that are not interacting with each other," said Kepler, "when at least 30 percent of stars interact with a binary companion."

[Lou Newton]

If a man loves a woman, or a woman loves a man, they want to know everything about that person. They want to know their favorite color, what they like to do, what they are good at etc. They simply want to know everything about that person. They more they know about them, the closer they are, the more intimate they are. They know things about that person that others do not know. It is these secrets they share that make them close.

If we love the Lord who created everything that exists, we will want to know about His creation. The more we know about His creation, the more we know about Him. The natural is a sign of the spiritual.

1 Cor 15
40 There are also heavenly bodies and there are earthly bodies; but the splendor of the heavenly bodies is one kind, and the splendor of the earthly bodies is another.
41The sun has one kind of splendor, the moon another and the stars another; and star differs from star in splendor.
42 So will it be with the resurrection of the dead. The body that is sown is perishable, it is raised imperishable;
43 it is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory; it is sown in weakness, it is raised in power;
44 it is sown a natural body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body.
45 So it is written: “The first man Adam became a living being” ; the last Adam, a life-giving spirit.
46 The spiritual did not come first, but the natural, and after that the spiritual.

We see here that the natural ( the creation ) is sign of the spiritual ( God is Spirit). So every truth we learn of the creation is knowledge about God Himself.

So what can we learn about God from this discovery ?

Well how could Paul know that stars differ from star in splendor ? Paul did not have a telescope. Man did not know White dwarfs even existed. But The Lord Jesus who created the stars knew about White Dwarfs. This is evidence that the Holy Spirit of The Lord Jesus told Paul to write this and the whole Bible is from God. Because The Lord has now revealed to men that stars do differ from one another.

We can tell the mass of a White Dwarf, and by that, we know what the force of gravity is on the surface of it. We know the temperature by the color of the light coming from it. We know the elements that it is made up of by that same light.

The surface of these White dwarfs is made of carbon, the same element that diamonds are formed from. The pressure and temperature on the surface of some White Dwarfs is exactly the pressure and temperature that diamonds form. So we know that the surface of some White dwarfs are covered with diamonds. These diamonds are a thick layer covering the surface.

Evil men kill one another over a tiny spec of diamond when there are millions of White Dwarfs the size of the Earth that are covered with them. Diamonds are NOT rare in the universe. They are beautiful, and while many men kill one another to possess a spec for a few years, God will give many, for eternity, to those who wait upon Him.

One night as I was standing outside looking into the sky seeking my Creator, The Lord gave me a vision. A man was fighting his way up a very steep rocky mountain and demons were trying to kill him at every step. It was a terrible sword battle but by the grace of our Lord he arrived at the Gates of Pearl.

The Gates opened and someone pulled him inside. He heard a huge crowd cheering. The sound was like none he had ever heard before, it was so great. The sound was very loud, but you could still hear each distinct voice of each person in the crowd. But it was so loud it was like rolling thunder.

The man was escorted to a very large arena like place. The man wondered what the people were cheering about. When he finally entered he found they were all cheering for him. They had been cheering and praying for him in every fight with the demons as he fought his way up the mountain.

Then suddenly it was so quiet you could hear a pin drop. He turned to see The Lord Jesus in front of him. The Lord told him, "well done good faithful servant". The man dropped to his knees with more thanksgiving than he could stand under. Then The Lord gave him a breastplate made of gold covered with a diamond that covered it entirely, but was made of one diamond. Like a coating of diamond. The Lord put it upon him and told him that nothing could penetrate that armor. Nothing could ever hurt him again, nothing. Then he was told he would be a Warrior for The Lord for all eternity.

We do not have to seek riches or hang onto anything on this earth. Those who wait will be given riches beyond their imagination.

But The Lord Jesus, Himself will be our reward, that and the fact that He loves us.

Lou Newton

[Baruch]

That was a very beautiful post, Lou. Praise and thanks to the Lord.

[Lou Newton]

That was a very beautiful post, Lou. Praise and thanks to the Lord.

Thanks for the reply Barry. It seems this may be over the head of most, because no one has replied except you.

When the Holy Spirit spoke this to me, it brought tears to see how much He loves us. I had not thought about that vision The Lord gave me that night long ago. I just had a preacher preach a whole sermon about me and he mentioned me by name. He told the whole church to shun me and called his wife and kids to the front to stand with him. This implied that I had attacked his family. I had not even attacked him in any way.

He was preaching that the people who attended his church were no longer sinners and I was unaware of it. When a woman said that she was no longer a sinner at the home group at my friends house, I disagreed and read 1 John 1 to the group. She was upset and went to the pastor. He came to the next meeting to set everyone straight. I disagreed with him also, and read 1 John 1 again, that said if we say we have not sinned, we do not even know God and are calling Him a liar. I pointed out that the verbs were present ongoing tense in the Greek. That means is we say in the present and anytime in the future that we have not sinned we do not know God.

The man that hosted the home group agreed with me. That man was a large contributor to his church so the pastor said no more. The two had a discussion after the meeting. The next day that pastor came to my house and apologized in private. But day after that he preached the sermon asking people to shun me.

His behavior made it easy for me to see that he was the one that was wrong. The Lord has mercy on us when disagreements like this take place. The Lord spoke further to me and simply said Jeremiah 28.

Jeremiah 28 Living Bible (TLB)

28On a December day in that same year—the fourth year of the reign of Zedekiah, king of Judah—Hananiah (son of Azzur), a false prophet from Gibeon, addressed me publicly in the Temple while all the priests and people listened. He said:
2 “The Lord of Hosts, the God of Israel, declares: I have removed the yoke of the king of Babylon from your necks. 3 Within two years I will bring back all the Temple treasures that Nebuchadnezzar carried off to Babylon, 4 and I will bring back King Jeconiah, son of Jehoiakim, king of Judah, and all the other captives exiled to Babylon, says the Lord. I will surely remove the yoke put on your necks by the king of Babylon.”
5 Then Jeremiah said to Hananiah, in front of all the priests and people,6 “Amen! May your prophecies come true! I hope the Lord will do everything you say and bring back from Babylon the treasures of this Temple, with all our loved ones. 7 But listen now to the solemn words I speak to you in the presence of all these people. 8The ancient prophets who preceded you and me spoke against many nations, always warning of war, famine, and plague. 9 So a prophet who foretells peace has the burden of proof on him to prove that God has really sent him. Only when his message comes true can it be known that he really is from God.”
10 Then Hananiah, the false prophet, took the yoke off Jeremiah’s neck and broke it. 11 And Hananiah said again to the crowd that had gathered, “The Lord has promised that within two years he will release all the nations now in slavery to King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylon.” At that point Jeremiah walked out.
12 Soon afterwards the Lord gave this message to Jeremiah: 13 Go and tell Hananiah that the Lord says: You have broken a wooden yoke, but these people have yokes of iron on their necks. 14 The Lord, the God of Israel, says: I have put a yoke of iron on the necks of all these nations, forcing them into slavery to Nebuchadnezzar, king of Babylon. And nothing will change this decree, for I have even given him all your flocks and herds.
15Then Jeremiah said to Hananiah, the false prophet, “Listen, Hananiah, the Lord has not sent you, and the people are believing your lies.16 Therefore the Lord says you must die. This very year your life will end because you have rebelled against the Lord.”
17 And sure enough, two months later Hananiah died.

I was in solemn silence after I read this and said nothing. The Lord will do as He pleases. He needs no counselor.

But I was feeling discouraged because of all the strife and was asking The Lord if I was wrong, or had preached anything that was not true. It was then He gave me the vision. It is one of the most comforting things He ever spoke to me.

Within a few weeks the pastor left his wife and kids and the church and became a used car salesman.

We should see that it is a very serious thing to preach lies to the people.