RS Ophiuchi
recurrent nova · red giant feeding a white dwarf
5,000 light-years from Earth
A red giant overflows its Roche lobe and feeds a white dwarf. Every ~15 years the piled-up hydrogen ignites in a nova that blasts out an hourglass shell (last in 2021).
- orbital period ~454 days (shown ~20 s) · gas crossing L1
- kind
- star · explosion or collision
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- Eta Carinae hypergiant binary inside the Homunculus Nebula
- T Coronae Borealis recurrent nova
- Deneb white supergiant
- WR 124 Wolf-Rayet star shedding its skin
- M73 four stars by chance