Uploaded July 2023 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
White dwarfs are the super-compact cores of stars like the Sun after they run out of fuel to fuse and blow their outer layers away. As massive as a star and as small as Earth, they can have fiercely strong magentic fields. The white dwarf ZTF J203349.8+322901.1, nicknamed Janus (which is way easier to remember) has an off-kilter magneitc field that spins with the star. Astronomers think that the field is so strong it can suppress convection ( where hot material rises and cooler material sinks) on one side of the star. This in turn creates complicated physical conditions where one side is all hydrogen and the other helium.
Original press release: https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/two-faced-star-exposed
Credit: K. Miller, Caltech/IPAC
White dwarfs are the super-compact cores of stars like the Sun after they run out of fuel to fuse and blow their outer layers away. As massive as a star and as small as Earth, they can have fiercely strong magentic fields. The white dwarf ZTF J203349.8+322901.1, nicknamed Janus (which is way easier to remember) has an off-kilter magneitc field that spins with the star. Astronomers think that the field is so strong it can suppress convection ( where hot material rises and cooler material sinks) on one side of the star. This in turn creates complicated physical conditions where one side is all hydrogen and the other helium.
Original press release: https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/two-faced-star-exposed
Credit: K. Miller, Caltech/IPAC
