Globally visible, Sirius has been the focus of thorough astronomical studies since the advent of the telescope. A groundbreaking discovery surfaced in 1844 when Bessel detected an anomaly in Sirius' spatial movement, implying the presence of an orbiting object. Despite its substantial mass, this enigmatic entity defied detection for years until Clark eventually unveiled it in 1862, christening it Sirius B.
The true nature of Sirius B remained shrouded until 1925 when Adamas unearthed that Sirius B was, in fact, a white dwarf. These compact celestial bodies, with sizes akin to Earth, emit a dim, whitish light. Their stellar mass, roughly equivalent to the Sun's, places them among the densest known entities in the universe. They signify the terminal phase of smaller to medium-sized stars, including our Sun. Once these stars exhaust their nuclear fuel reserves, they cast off their surface gas layers into the cosmos, with their cores collapsing into a white dwarf.
Sirius B represents a star that has concluded its life cycle. With a diameter of only 11700 km, equivalent to 92% of the Sun's, and a matching solar mass, its luminosity, however, is a mere 0.026 times that of our star.
Based on stellar evolution theories, Sirius B is believed to have originated from a star with five solar masses. This progenitor star spent roughly 100 million years along the main sequence, before depleting its core hydrogen reserves and expanding into a red giant. Subsequent rapid chain reactions eventually gave rise to the white dwarf we observe today.
Credit: ESA, NASA.
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