{"id":81419,"date":"2026-01-07T13:01:28","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T07:31:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=81419"},"modified":"2026-01-07T15:08:12","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T09:38:12","slug":"w-ursae-majoris-star","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/w-ursae-majoris-star\/","title":{"rendered":"W Ursae Majoris Star"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>W Ursae Majoris Star Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Astronomers from Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences used data from Devasthal Fast Optical Telescope and NASA\u2019s TESS space telescope to create detailed light curves of the W Ursae Majoris (W UMa) star.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About W Ursae Majoris Star<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is also known as a <\/span><b>low mass contact binary,<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> is a type of <\/span><b>eclipsing binary variable star.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They share a <\/span><b>single outer atmosphere<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and they orbit around each other.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">W UMa stars are easily recognized by their <\/span><b>light curves<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> with <\/span><b>near equal minima<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> and <\/span><b>continuous light variation.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Their variability ranges from a few tenths to slightly over a magnitude. The periods are typically short and range between <\/span><b>0.25 days to around 1.0 days.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Origin:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> The <\/span><b>traditional theory explaining<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the origin of contact binaries is that W UMa<\/span><b> systems form from detached binaries of comparable<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> periods through <\/span><b>orbital decay by angular momentum loss.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The idea of the contact binary seems to have been <\/span><b>first introduced by Kuiper (1941).<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Significance W Ursae Majoris Star Study<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">: They assist in precise determinations of fundamental stellar parameters such as masses, radii, and temperatures, crucial for testing theories about <\/span><b>how stars evolve over time.<\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h2><b>Key Findings about W Ursae Majoris Star<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It was found that <\/span><b>stars share their outer layers<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, their <\/span><b>orbits shift<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> slightly over time, as if tugging and pulling on one another<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Some stars <\/span><b>appear lopsided<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2014brighter on one side than the other.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is found that there is an uneven brightness point at dark magnetic star spots similar to star spots.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These spots rotate in and out of view, creating <\/span><b>bumps in the light curves.<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This also suggests the stars <\/span><b>have strong magnetic activity.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Scientists also found <\/span><b>specific light signals<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (called H-alpha and H-beta) that clearly show activity in the star\u2019s outer layer, which is linked to magnetic events like star spots and stellar flares.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source:<\/b> <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pib.gov.in\/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2211818&amp;reg=3&amp;lang=1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">PIB<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>W Ursae Majoris Star is also known as a low mass contact binary, is a type of eclipsing binary variable star. Read more about W Ursae Majoris Star, Origin, Key Findings, Latest News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":81394,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[21,22,23,4610],"class_list":{"0":"post-81419","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","8":"tag-prelims-pointers","9":"tag-upsc-current-affairs","10":"tag-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","11":"tag-w-ursae-majoris-star","12":"no-featured-image-padding"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81419","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=81419"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81419\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81394"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81419"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81419"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81419"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}