This artist's concept shows a debris disk that has been observed around an unusual class of interacting binary stars. The type of cataclysmic variable system being studied consists of a highly magnetic white dwarf star (a 'dead' remnant star formed from the core of a star like our Sun when it exhausts the available fuel to support nuclear fusion) and a very low-mass, cool object similar to a brown dwarf. The two objects orbit so closely that they make a complete revolution about each other in only 80-90 minutes.
PHOTO: P. Marenfeld and NOAO/AURA/NSF
