Free Astronomy Magazine May-June 2026

MAY-JUNE 2026 T his image from the Digitized Sky Survey (DSS) shows the re- gion of the sky around the dead star RXJ0528+2838, which is located at the very centre of the image. [ESO/Digitized Sky Survey 2. Acknowledgement: D. De Martin] imply that the white dwarf has been expelling a powerful outflow for at least 1000 years. Scientists don’t know exactly how a dead star with- out a disc can power such a long-last- ing outflow — but they do have a guess. This white dwarf is known to host a strong magnetic field, which has been confirmed by the MUSE data. This field channels the material stolen from the companion star di- rectly onto the white dwarf, without forming a disc around it. “Our find- ing shows that even without a disc, these systems can drive powerful outflows, revealing a mechanism we do not yet understand. This discov- ery challenges the standard picture of how matter moves and interacts in these extreme binary systems,” Iłkiewicz explains. The results hint at a hidden energy source, likely the strong magnetic field, but this ‘mystery engine’, as Scaringi puts it, still needs to be in- vestigated. The data show that the current magnetic field is only strong enough to power a bow shock last- ing for a few hundred years, so it only partly explains what the as- tronomers are seeing. To better understand the nature of such discless outflows, many more bi- nary systems need to be studied. ESO’s upcoming Extremely Large Tel- escope (ELT) will help astronomers “to map more of these systems as well as fainter ones and detect simi- lar systems in detail, ultimately help- ing in understanding the mysterious energy source that remains unex- plained,” as Scaringi foresees. !