Astronomers at the University of Warwick have made an exciting discovery—a rare, high-mass compact binary star system located just 150 light-years away in the Milky Way. This marks the first time such a system has been observed, offering valuable insights into the origins of type 1a supernovae.

Astronomers have confirmed a pair of white dwarfs on a collision course to become a type 1a supernova—the brightest cosmic explosion. This system, the heaviest of its kind ever identified, has a combined mass of 1.56 times that of the sun.

Separated by only 1/60th of the Earth-sun distance, the stars currently orbit each other in just over 14 hours. However, gravitational wave radiation will gradually draw them closer over billions of years. On the verge of their explosive end, the stars will orbit so rapidly that a single orbit will take only 30–40 seconds.