NASA's Kepler space telescope has witnessed the effects of a
dead star bending the light of its companion star. The findings are among the
first detections of this phenomenon -- a result of Einstein's general theory of
relativity -- in binary, or double, star systems.
The dead star, called a white dwarf, is the burnt-out core
of what used to be a star like our sun. It is locked in an orbiting dance with
its partner, a small "red dwarf" star. While the tiny white dwarf is
physically smaller than the red dwarf, it is more massive.
"This white dwarf is about the size of Earth but has
the mass of the sun," said Phil Muirhead of the California Institute of
Technology, Pasadena, lead author of the findings to be published April 20 in
the Astrophysical Journal. "It's so hefty that the red dwarf, though
larger in physical size, is circling around the white dwarf."