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White dwarf star atmosphere is 99% oxygen


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A mysterious star with an atmosphere dominated by oxygen has left scientists scratching their heads.

Discovered 1,200 light years away in the constellation Draco, the star has been described as "very strange" and is the only one ever discovered that exhibits such peculiar properties.

Read More: http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/news/293221/white-dwarf-stars-atmosphere-is-99-oxygen

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Are they going to name this dwarf 'Freaky'?

Bring the total to 8? Doc, Grumpy, Happy, Sleepy, Bashful, Sneezy, Dopey...and Freaky.

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Bring the total to 8?

I think you'll find it's 9, you missed out Waspie.

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Shame on me! I am so sorry, 9 it is.

It will be 10 if Poison returns.

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I wonder if it possible that some form of life could be causing this in the way that plants generate our oxygen. That is quite a pure level of oxygen all in one spot to have just "blown" there. I wonder what kind of planets it has!

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Name of the star or its number designation?

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I wonder if it possible that some form of life could be causing this in the way that plants generate our oxygen. That is quite a pure level of oxygen all in one spot to have just "blown" there. I wonder what kind of planets it has!

The oxygen atoms were actually created by the star itself. Life doesn't create oxygen, it just rearranges molecules (groups of atoms) through various chemical reactions. In the case of plants, they release oxygen atoms from their bond with carbon CO2 -> O2 through photosynthesis. They use the sun's energy combined with chlorophyll to break apart a CO2 molecule and use the C as fuel (converted to sugar) and the O2 is a discarded bi-product.

The O atoms themselves, however, were created inside another star long ago through a process called fusion. Where a star's gravity is strong enough, that at its core that it can actually "fuse" helium atoms into oxygen. At some point that star blew up and became part of the space dust that accumulated into our planet.

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I wonder if the dwarf will just burn itself out to nothing, if it already hasn't, or is there still a surprise or two left. Maybe there's some "dirt" in there.

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