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cataclysmic variable
(redirected from Cataclysmic variable star)

   Also found in: Wikipedia 0.01 sec.
cataclysmic variable [¦kad·ə¦kliz·mik ′ver·ē·ə·bəl]
(astronomy)
A star showing a sudden increase in the magnitude of light, followed by a slow fading of light; examples are novae and supernovae. Also known as explosive variable.
In particular, a short-period binary star, one of whose components is a white dwarf star, capable of irregularly timed but recurrent outbursts of brightness by 2 to 10,000.


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The survey data includes 185 cataclysmic variable stars, which is about three out of every four such objects discovered over the same time span and more than the Sloan Digital Sky Survey found in six years.
For his MSc dissertation, Mr Zietsman is analysing SALT spectroscopy and simultaneous photometry from the SAAO 74-in telescope, of the eclipsing cataclysmic variable star EC21178-5417.
The telescope will be capable of unsupervised, fully autonomous operation for many nights of observations and is ideally suited to monitoring many hundreds of variable astronomical objects such as supernovae, gamma-ray bursters, and cataclysmic variable stars.
 
 
 
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