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OXYGEN on a planet might be a sign of life, but in two odd white dwarf stars it could indicate a narrow escape from violent death. They could help pin down the point at which stars go supernova.
A group led by Boris G盲nsicke at the University of Warwick, UK, found two white dwarfs that hold far more oxygen than carbon, which is unusual. 鈥淚t鈥檚 extreme 鈥� these things look very different from any white dwarfs we鈥檝e seen before,鈥� says team member Danny Steeghs.
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Creating so much oxygen takes a fiercer nuclear furnace than is needed for a carbon-rich mixture, so the stars that became these white dwarfs must have been hot and massive. Just a little bigger and they would have gone supernova, the team says (Science, ).
These almost-bombs might show more precisely the threshold at which stars explode.