(全文共258个词)Dr Molnar’ s interest was piqued at a conference in 2013, when Karen Kinemuchi, another astronomer, presented some puzzling findings on a particular star seen by Kepler, a space telescope designed chiefly to hunt for exoplanets.When Dr Molnar and his team observed the star—named KIC9832227—they discovered that it was a “ contact binary ”, a pair of stars so close together that the smaller orbits within the atmosphere of the larger.They also found that the smaller star was orbiting more quickly—and thus closer to its bigger companion—than it had been when Dr Kinemuchi made her measurements.Further observations confirmed that the smaller star was indeed spiralling towards its companion.Based on observations of another contact binary, V1309 Scorpii, which became a nova in 2008, the researchers were able to offer a prediction of the time of impa
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