Technologies

NASA satellite witnesses rare sight: Dying star ‘switching on and off’

In a «totally unexpected» turn of events, a white dwarf couldn’t swallow any of its star food floating nearby. That forced its lights to go out.

Deep within the cosmos, a fading star’s quiet death was sharply interrupted. Instead of gracefully vanishing into the heavy darkness of space, as stars typically do, it coughed out a mysterious, prolonged flicker of light.

This «has never been seen in other accreting white dwarfs,» Simone Scaringi, an astronomer at Durham University’s Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy in the United Kingdom, said in a statement. «It appears to be switching on and off.» Scaringi is lead author of a study on the star published Monday in the journal Nature Astronomy.

Every iridescent star that decorates our universe — and those yet to add to the glittering collection — will one day disappear. Slowly but surely, their luster, fueled by heaps of hydrogen gas, will dwindle as the supply runs out. Entering their final stages of life, they will become white dwarfs.

And NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, caught a unique glimpse of this particular white dwarf’s strange behavior. The dying star is part of the two-star system dubbed TW Pictoris, located 1,400 light-years away.

«To see the brightness of TW Pictoris plummet in 30 minutes is, in itself, extraordinary,» Scaringi said. His team believes the star unexpectedly lost illumination because of a sudden hurdle in its food-funneling mechanism. Basically, the shiny space ball’s fiery snacks were falling out of reach.

White dwarfs feast on their companion stars by pulling flaming bits of the body into their Saturn-like ring of matter, or accretion disc, held in place by suspended magnetic fields. Swallowing a delicious bite makes a white dwarf literally light up with glee.

But these gently glimmering orbs are expected to pace themselves while feeding off their companion stars, meaning the sparkly spheres’ luminescence should dim gradually as they finish their dinner. Darkness isn’t anticipated to happen all at once, the way it did with TW Pictoris.

«The brightness variations seen in accreting white dwarfs are generally relatively slow, occurring on timescales of days to months,» Scaringi said. That’s why, he explained, TW Pictoris’ white dwarf switching off is «totally unexpected from our understanding of how these systems are supposed to feed through the accretion disc.»

In decoding the puzzle, the team found that during its «off» phase, the white dwarf’s accretion disc was spinning so fast it induced a centrifugal force strong enough to prevent the disc’s matter from ever reaching the central star. That’s why the expiring stellar object didn’t have anything to gobble on, thereby limiting its light. Such regulation, according to the research, is called magnetic gating.

The phenomenon is similar to what happens when you ride a roller coaster and enter a loop. A rider wouldn’t fall into the loop due to the force that presses the passengers into their seats.

After the «off» phase and during the «on» phase, the disc’s speed of rotation went back to normal. Matter could, once again, escape the grips of the spin for the white dwarf to snack on.

«This really is a previously unrecognized phenomenon,» Scaringi explained, adding that «because we can draw comparisons with similar behavior in the much smaller neutron stars, it could be an important step in helping us to better understand the process of how other accreting objects feed on the material that surrounds them, and the important role of magnetic fields in this process.»

Technologies

Apple Launches Creator Studio Package as $13 a Month Subscription

Mac users can still buy the apps individually, but subscribers get access to Final Cut Pro and other Studio tools.

Apple is bundling its pro filmmaking and audio tools including Final Cut Pro with its productivity apps Keynote, Pages and Numbers into a subscription software suite called Apple Creator Studio.

The package, which includes apps for Mac, iPad and iPhone, includes Logic Pro, Pixelmator Pro, Motion, Compressor, MainStage and the whiteboard app Freeform. Creator Studio will be available starting Jan. 28 at a cost of $13 per month or $129 per year, or $3 per month or $30 per year for students and educators. Mac users will still have the option to purchase software like Final Cut Pro for a one-time free. The current price for Final Cut Pro in the Mac App Store is $300.

While apps such as Keynote and Pages are already free on Apple platforms, it appears that new versions of those apps will receive access to beta features that will roll out first to Creator Studio subscribers. The announcement by Apple alludes to «new AI features and premium content» in some of the apps it otherwise makes available to use for free.

What the Creator Studio bundle comes with

The star of the show in Creator Studio is Final Cut Pro, the video editing software that will now include Transcript Search on both Mac and iPad. There is also a new Beat Detection feature Apple says uses an AI model to analyze a music track and display a beat grid, making it easier to cut video to music rhythms. The software also will include a new Montage Maker on iPad for quick social video creation.

Motion, the 2D and 3D graphics tool, and Compressor also integrate with Final Cut Pro. Apple touted Motion’s Magnetic Mask feature for isolating objects or people without the need for a green screen.

Logic Pro has new features for musicians, including a Synth Player addition to AI Session Players. Chord ID, a new AI feature, can create chord progressions from audio or MIDI recordings. A new Sound Library will have hundreds of royalty-free clips, samples and loops.

A revamped MainStage app gives subscribers access to instrument, voice-professing and guitar rig tools. Pixelmator Pro arrives with new tools and filters, and there will be an iPad version in addition to the Mac tool.

Freeform in the Creator Studio package will add premium content, including curated photos, graphics and illustrations. It will also get new AI features that include image creation.

Technologies

Reddit Outage Resolved: Here’s What Happened

Did you have trouble reading your favorite subreddits today? You weren’t alone.

If you had trouble accessing the news and discussion forum Reddit on Tuesday, you weren’t the only one. However, as of 10:15 a.m. PT, the site appears to be back up and running normally. Reddit’s status monitoring page, RedditStatus.com, notes that «all systems (are) operational» after the brief outage.

But earlier, at 9:30 a.m. PT, RedditStatus.com said the company was «investigating elevated errors across reddit.com and native apps.» RedditStatus.com reported degraded site performance for both desktop web use and native mobile apps.

Earlier on Tuesday, the site-monitoring service DownDetector also reported issues at Reddit, providing additional details. At one point on Tuesday, DownDetector received over 100,000 reports that the site was having problems. At 10:25 am PT, the report numbers fell to under 600. (Disclosure: Downdetector is owned by the same parent company as CNET, Ziff Davis.)

Don’t miss any of our unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add CNET as a preferred Google source.

«Reddit is currently experiencing a significant internal outage causing widespread service disruptions,» the site said earlier Tuesday. «The impact is categorized as Very High, primarily affecting mobile app access (55%) and website connectivity (39%). While reports are heavily concentrated in major hubs like New York City and Chicago, the lack of ISP correlation suggests a broad, nationwide issue stemming from Reddit’s internal servers rather than external network providers.»

A representative for Reddit did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Another social media site, X, formerly Twitter, also showed problems on Tuesday, according to DownDetector. Those problems seemed to spike around 6:30 a.m. PT and improve after.

Technologies

This 3-in-1 Charger Is a Must-Have for Travelers, and It Just Hit a Record-Low of $95

Snag it for $45 off and charge your iPhone, AirPods and Apple Watch at the same time.

If you’re a frequent traveler, then you know that outlets are a precious commodity in places like airports and coffee shops. So why waste one on a single device when you can charge up to three at once? Right now, you can grab this seriously sleek Ugreen Magflow three-in-one foldable charger for just $95 at Amazon. That’s a $45 discount and the all-time lowest price we’ve seen. Just don’t wait too long, as this deal could expire at any time.

At just 7.4 ounces, this compact charging station is designed to be taken on the go. But despite its size, it still supports 25-watt MagSafe charging for iPhones, as well as 5-watt wireless charging for AirPods and Apple Watches. The charging stand also tilts up to double as a stand, and it’s equipped with 16 magnets to keep your phone aligned and securely in place. Plus, it’s got built-in protections against overheating, overcharging, short-circuiting and more to prevent damage to your devices.

Why this deal matters

This folding Ugreen charger is great for juicing up your devices on the go, and it’s never been more affordable. Plus, Ugreen makes some of the best MagSafe chargers on the market right now, so don’t miss your chance to grab one at a record-low price.