For the first time, researchers have observed an X-ray explosion on a white dwarf

[Still Waters]

When stars like our sun use up all their fuel, they shrink to form white dwarfs. Sometimes such dead stars flare back to life in a super-hot explosion and produce a fireball of X-ray radiation. A research team from several German institutes including Tübingen University, and led by Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg (FAU), has now been able to observe such an explosion of X-ray light for the very first time.

"It was to some extent a fortunate coincidence, really," explains Ole König from the Astronomical Institute at FAU in the Dr. Karl Remeis observatory in Bamberg, who has published an article about this observation in the journal Nature.... "These X-ray flashes last only a few hours and are almost impossible to predict, but the observational instrument must be pointed directly at the explosion at exactly the right time," explains the astrophysicist.

https://phys.org/news/2022-05-x-ray-explosion-white-dwarf.html

X-ray detection of a nova in the fireball phase

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-022-04635-y

[XenoFish]

I could make a not so politically correct joke out of that thread title.