posted November 21, 2007 05:01 PM         

Oddball white dwarfs embody new category of star By Will Dunham
Wed Nov 21, 1:01 PM ET

Eight unusual examples of a burned-out celestial object known as a white dwarf detected in our Milky Way galaxy represent a previously unknown category of stars, astronomers said on Wednesday.

White dwarfs mark the end point in stellar evolution for all but the most massive of stars in the universe, with about 97 percent of stars, including our sun, destined to finish their existence this way, according to astronomers.

White dwarfs result from the collapse of star cores in dying stars whose nuclear fusion has ceased. They usually have a mass about that of the sun, but are only a bit larger than Earth because they have blown off their outer layers, leaving behind only a small, dim and extremely dense core.

University of Arizona astrophysicist Patrick Dufour said previously known white dwarfs have fallen into two categories: those with a hydrogen-rich atmosphere and those with a helium-rich atmosphere. But Dufour and three other scientists, writing in the journal Nature, described eight white dwarfs that break the mold by possessing carbon atmospheres.

The researchers think they may have formed from stars much more massive than the sun but not quite massive enough to explode as a supernova.

"It was totally unexpected because all of the white dwarfs we knew so far were either hydrogen-rich or helium-rich. So this is a completely new kind of star," Dufour said in a telephone interview.

These eight white dwarfs are located in our own galaxy between about 1,000 and 2,000 light years from Earth, Dufour said. A light year is about 6 trillion miles, the distance light travels in a year.

The scientists have spotted at least a couple of other white dwarfs that might fit into this new category, Dufour added. All of them were among about 10,000 new white dwarfs recently identified in an extensive survey effort.

After blowing off their outer layers, white dwarfs typically leave behind a core of carbon and oxygen that is cloaked by a surrounding atmosphere of hydrogen or helium. The eight newly described ones have atmospheres primarily of carbon, with little or no trace of hydrogen or helium.

"It will be a challenge to try to explain how they form and what does this tell us about stellar evolution," Dufour said.

They might have evolved from a star similar to a unique one called H1504+65, the researchers said. Astronomers think this star violently expelled all its hydrogen and nearly all its helium, leaving behind a stellar nucleus with a surface half carbon and half oxygen.

(Editing by Vicki Allen)

posted December 01, 2007 12:25 AM         

T, Care to elaborate?

The first is Aries point 0º0'.0" in the natal the second is the distance it travels?
(Here's where I'm lost)
Cybele and it's location or distance???

My own is this:
H1504 Cybele is 0º0'.0" in the 12th house
[65] is 21º38'33" Capricorn in the 10th house

I noticed that you can get the aries point at astro.com by just placing any of the following combinations
[H, H1, H15, H150, etc.]

It shows:
Number/Name: [65] Cybele
Discovery Date: 1861 03 08
Discovery Site: Marseilles
Person whom Discovered: Tempel, E. W.

Have only slept 4 hours... Maybe I'm missing something?

More history on Cybele:
In ancient Asian religion, the Great Mother Goddess. The chief centers of her early worship were Phrygia and Lydia. In the 5th cent. B.C. her cult was introduced into Greece, where she was associated with Demeter and Rhea. The spread of her cult to Rome late in the 3d cent. B.C. was marked chiefly by her Palatine temple. Cybele was primarily a nature goddess, responsible for maintaining and reproducing the wild things of the earth. As guardian of cities and nations, however, she was also entrusted with the general welfare of the people. She was attended by the Corybantes and Dactyls, who honored her with wild music and dancing. At her annual spring festival, the death and resurrection of her beloved Attis were celebrated. She frequented mountains and woodland areas and was usually represented either riding a chariot drawn by lions or seated on a throne flanked by two lions. Cybele is frequently identified with various other mother goddesses, notably Agdistis. -source

Wiki says:
65 Cybele is one of the largest asteroids in the main belt. It gives its name to the Cybele asteroids which orbit outward from the Sun from the 2:1 orbital resonance with Jupiter. As a C-type asteroid it is dark in color and carbonaceous in composition. It was discovered on March 8, 1861 by Ernst Tempel and named after Cybele the earth goddess.

First Cybelian stellar occultation was observed on October 17, 1979 in the Soviet Union. A diameter of 230 km was derived, closely matching the diameter of 237 km determined by the IRAS satellite. During the same occultation, a hint of a possible 11 km wide satellite was detected.

posted December 10, 2007 02:46 PM         

Wondering if others here have checked this thing out???

Strange with a capital Sssssssss! -LOL <~-¸.~.¸¸.~¨¯`

posted December 14, 2007 05:12 PM         

ok,

I thought it would be interesting to see where it was in my chart since it had the numbers and found it a little weird. Cybele is at 00 Aries and in transit, is still there. 65, in my natal chart is at 5 Pisces but has now transitted to 26 Scorp.

I read your information about Cybele – thanks so much. i saw "Cybele was primarily a nature goddess, responsible for maintaining and reproducing the wild things of the earth" and started to look for this site about asteroids, I use to go to but first i wanted to find the sabian symbol meaning for the 00 Aries degree (i could pick 30 pisces, right?) - Symbol: A MAJESTIC ROCK FORMATION RESEMBLING A FACE IS IDEALIZED BY A BOY WHO TAKES IT AS HIS IDEAL OF GREATNESS, AS HE GROWS UP, HE BEGINS TO LOOK LIKE IT.

Here is something else about her:
CYBELE
Cybele was originally a Phrygian goddess, not Greek. She was goddess of the mysterious in nature, and worshipped as a goddess of the Earth. But there is a strange twist to her origin.
Zeus apparently, at one point, fertilized a stone, and a hermaphroditic monster named Agditis resulted. The gods could not let the creature be, so they chose to mutilate it, and the goddess Cybele resulted from the castration. The cult of Cybele included ceremonies where certain priests actually castrated themselves. This cult spread throughout both Greece and Rome. The Greeks, as I mentioned, identified Cybele with Rhea. The Romans called her the Great Mother.
Cybele transits seem to relate very much to whatever house Saturn occupies natally, even if the two bodies are not in aspect.
For example, when Cybele transits varous places in the chart of someone with Saturn in the seventh house, the transits appear to have something to do with relationships, and this is true no matter which house it transits through. On the other hand, if one has natal Saturn in the 2nd house, Cybele's transits all seem to relate to money, values, and possessions. Cybele seems to be an emissary for your personal Saturn.
Natally, many people feel a painful lack where there natal Cybele is located, yet have a blind spot as to how to obtain what they lack.
For example, people with Cybele in the 11th may feel a great deal of pain at not having many friends, realize that they lack the proper social skills needed to cultivate friends, and yet have no idea how to obtain the needed skills.
What sometimes happens, though, is that they reach a point where they cannot stand the lack any longer, and put all their efforts into acquiring that which they need. In doing so, they become quite skilled in this area.

I guess – wherever Cybele is – is where we feel pain of lack, wherever 65 is, is where we most recognize the pain at and most probably, where we could put all our efforts into acquiring what we need to overcome the pain or maybe where we realize why we feel pain and lack. When 65 is transitting – we could work out the issues of pain and lack in the house it’s in or maybe where we feel the pain of lack at most.

posted December 14, 2007 08:05 PM         

So now in your own natal chart T, you'll be checking out 6º Pisces...