Space represents the ideal environment where shapes and sizes of all kinds can be found. While celestial bodies like the moon, planets and stars have always been round, periodic impacts on their surfaces have somewhat deformed their figures which is why the search for the perfect sphere remains elusive until now.
Just recently, experts have found a star that possesses a polished round frame like no other in the universe.
The astral entity being discussed is a star identified as Kepler or KIC 11145123 which is about 5,000 light-years away from Earth.
Astronomer Laurent Gizon has led a research team from Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research and Germany's University of Gottingen that unraveled the roundest matter in the solar system. By adopting the astero-seismology approach, the group has determined how spherical the object actually is.
The slow-spinning gas realm shows no signs of impact on its surface. The absence of jolts or blows has allowed this object to maintain its ideal form. As it is, scientists suggest that it is definitely the only natural matter with a perfect sphere ever known to science.
Through the astero-seismology method, researchers are able to calculate star oscillations. The resulting statistics are then used to determine the total number of flatness or oblateness a circle has.
It must be noted that during the process of spinning on their axis, centrifugal forces pull the equatorial areas away from the center of the celestial bodies. This phenomenon induces these round matters to appear thicker instead of tall. One way to describe the event is that they oblate.
Astral bodies that spin fast become more oblate but in the case of the Kepler star, its slow rotating motion manages to present a perfectly-molded round build.
Based on calculations, KIC 11145123 spins three times slower than the Earth's Sun although it is more than twice bigger in size.
The Kepler's roundness measurements reveal that the difference between the polar radii and its equator is only three km. Compared to the star's 1.5 million km mean radius, the number is astoundingly small.
To fully explain the circumstance, Motherboard Science writer Michael Byrne shares that astero-seismology is the process of separating the frequencies of acoustic waves emerging from a star's interior.
Using this argument, it has been discovered that the KIC's exterior parts spin faster that its core. Although this is what keeps the star oblate, it remains unclear what triggers the disconnection between the surface and the central part.
