Octo-Tiger Animation (VIDEO)
Caption
This movie shows an Octo-Tiger simulation of two white dwarf stars in orbit around each other. We are looking down on the two stars as they start to merge together. The color indicates how dense the gas is in the orbital or midplane, with brown indicating the densest gas and blue the least dense. The arrows indicate the speed of the gas. Red arrows correspond to high velocities of 1,000 km/s and blue arrows correspond to low velocities of 1 km/s. Time is shown in seconds in the upper-left corner. The binary initially completes an orbit every two minutes and the total simulated time is less than two hours, representing the last hours in the life of this binary before merging.
Credit
Sagiv Shiber, LSU
Usage Restrictions
None
License
Licensed content