A new study conducted by scientist Mark Hoffmann from University of North Dakota, explains a new type of chemical bonding which answers the most anticipated questions about how stars form, evolve and die, according to Science Daily.
"We discovered a new type of chemical bonding. That's a pretty bold statement, but I'm not kidding you! It's a brand new type of chemical bonding, not previously known to science," said Hoffmann, who previously enlightened the world with his achievements in explaining chemical compound formation.
Hoffmann and his colleagues rewrote the chemical rule book reviewing the changes that takes place in the night sky. The research also reveals the formation of some compounds in far space.
"Our discovery addresses one of the mysteries in astrophysics about the spectrum of white dwarf stars. White dwarfs have an unusual spectrum that has been thought to result from polymerized hydrogen and helium which, of course, do not occur on Earth," Hoffman said, in a report published by Science Daily. "It's possible out there because the magnetic fields on white dwarfs are several orders of magnitude larger than anything that can be generated on Earth."
Hoffmann compared the magnetic force that can be generated on earth to that of on Sirius B, the closest white dwarf.
"There was speculation that this phenomenon should exist, but no one had the proof, and no one -- until the team I'm on described the process -- had the theoretical structure and the computational tools to address this," he said.
The maximum magnetic force that can be generated can be of 1,000 Tesla, a measure of magnetic force, whereas on Sirus B for instance magnetic fields are about 200,000 to 400,000 Tesla. Hoffmann further explains that such vast magnetic fields can change the way atoms combine and can alter the chemical reality learned on Earth.
"What we had before we discovered this was basically a paper-and-pencil model of what goes on in the universe. Compared to what's out there in places such as white dwarf stars, the magnetic fields we can generate here -- even with the strongest magnets -- are pathetic," Hoffmann said, according to Science Daily. "We computationally modeled the behavior that we theorized, based on universally applicable physical principles."
The discovery is also published in a recent issue of the journal Science.
