Emily Chan
“There’s something that the jet is doing to the star systems that wander into the surrounding neighborhood,” said Lessing.
“Maybe the jet somehow snowplows hydrogen fuel onto the white dwarfs, causing them to erupt more frequently.”
However, the jet might not be doing any physical pushing, and it could be due to the effect of the pressure of light emanating from the jet instead.
When hydrogen is delivered faster, eruptions will occur faster. So, there could be something near the jet “doubling the mass transfer rate onto the white dwarfs.”
Another idea is that the jet is heating up the white dwarf’s companion star, causing it to overflow and spill more hydrogen onto the dwarf.
Yet, after researchers did some calculations, they realized the heating effect was not large enough to produce such a result.
Astronomers will need to directly observe star eruptions taking place around cosmic jets, which is a difficult task. But given that at least one nova erupts in M87 every day, it may just be doable.
