Technologies

Rare binary star, spotted for the first time, answers a long-standing question

This breakthrough could fill a gap in the stellar evolutionary timeline.

The universe is a star museum. Up close, we have our beloved sun in its middle age. Farther out, we’ll find white dwarfs nearing the end of their days. Peer deeper, and you’ll stumble upon hyper-dense neutron stars on the brink of turning into black holes. Now, for the first time, scientists have uncovered a star exhibit that, for years, has only been a hypothesis.

Technically, the team’s discovery is of a binary star system, or one star orbiting another. In this case, the smaller companion is eating the larger star, and very soon, the sparkly orb being chomped on will become a rare form of white dwarf, or late-stage star, called an extremely low mass, or ELM, white dwarf.

They’ve published a paper explaining their findings in this month’s issue of Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Though fascinating in itself, the sighting of the deteriorating binary star could also fill an empty slot in a long-standing cosmic puzzle.

«This is exciting; it’s a missing evolutionary link in binary star formation models that we’ve been looking for,» Kareem El-Badry, lead author of the paper and a researcher from the Institute for Theory and Computation at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, said in a statement.

Zooming out from the binary star itself, El-Badry’s discovery fills a gap in our knowledge of how ELM white dwarfs are generated in the first place. We know ELM white dwarfs exist, as scientists have already pinpointed them, but these stellar bodies pose a conundrum.

According to astronomical calculations, experts say, for a star to naturally reach the mass of an ELM white dwarf, it would need to have been born over 13.8 billion years ago. The issue is, the universe itself is only 13.8 billion years old — so that doesn’t really make sense with what we know about the cosmos so far.

Therefore, the only way these stars could possibly be formed within the universe’s timeline is if an external force created them. That force, theorists say, could be the gravitational pull of a companion in a binary star system that’s pulling matter away from the other until the latter object becomes an ELM white dwarf. Seems intuitive, but for a long time, that was just a hypothesis.

Scientists have come upon binary star systems called cataclysmic variables where regular, massive stars are being consumed by a companion star. They’ve even recorded ELM white dwarfs with companions no longer consuming them. It’s easy to extrapolate that an intermediate step would involve an almost-ELM white dwarf with a companion star eating away at it, but no one had seen such a sight.

Thanks to El-Badry’s revelatory documentation, the transitional step appears to be proven at last.

Star hunting

El-Badry used a wide array of star data, several astronomical surveys and his own firsthand observations with the Shane Telescope at the Lick Observatory in California to locate the unique binary star. He’d come up with 50 potential candidates of transitional ELM white dwarfs and ultimately zeroed in on 21 options.

«100 percent of the candidates were these pre-ELMs we’d been looking for,» he explained in the statement. «They were more puffed up and bloated than ELMs. They also were egg-shaped because the gravitational pull of the other star distorts their spherical shape.»

Aptly, he compares the importance of this breakthrough to biological studies of organisms. «You go out into the jungle and find an organism. You describe how big it is, how much it weighs — and then you go on to some other organism,» he said. «You see all these different types of objects and need to piece together how they are all connected.»

Like the ever-advancing tree of life, El-Badry’s new evidence of ELM white dwarfs helps to unveil the entirety of our cosmic star gallery. «We found the evolutionary link between two classes of binary stars — cataclysmic variables and ELM white dwarfs — and we found a decent number of them,» he said.

Next, he hopes to delve into the other 29 pre-ELM white dwarf star candidates to enrich the universe’s star museum even further.

Technologies

Google’s Pixel 10A Is Coming to Japan With an Exclusive Blue Edition and Special Wallpaper

This model comes with creatively designed stickers and a special look for Pixel’s 10th anniversary.

Don’t be blue: Google is releasing an Isai blue edition of the Pixel 10A to celebrate the Android phone line’s 10th anniversary, setting it apart with its own sticker set, specialized wallpaper and custom icons. But it’ll only be available in Japan.

Announced Tuesday on the Google Japan blog, the Isai blue Pixel 10A has a dark blue look and includes bonus decorations designed in collaboration with Japan’s Heralbony art company. These include an exclusive bumper case and stickers for customization.

This edition of the Pixel 10A will arrive in Japan on May 20, following the April 14 release of the Pixel 10A in its original colors of lavender, berry, fog and obsidian. The Isai blue model costs 94,900 yen, which roughly translates to $595, and includes 256GB of storage.

This makes it slightly less expensive than the US model’s 256GB edition, but it comes with a number of fun extras at no additional cost.

Google’s creation of a country-specific model for Japan may also reflect strong sales in that market. In 2023, the IDC analytics firm (via 9to5Google) reported that the Pixel 7 series accounted for 10.7% of the country’s market share, a 527% increase from 2022.

Technologies

Can’t Wait for New Emoji? Here’s How to Create Your Own on iPhone

Apple Intelligence-enabled iPhones can create custom emoji in a few easy steps.

Apple brought new emoji to all iPhones when the company released iOS 26.4 on March 24. The new emoji include «🫍» orca, «🫪» distorted face and «🫈» hairy creature — or as we might normally call it, Sasquatch. According to Emojipedia, there are 3,953 emoji with more on the way, including a pickle. But there’s no emoji for a dog wearing pajamas, a plate with burgers and fries and many other things. But if you have Genmoji on your iPhone you can create these emoji and many more.

Apple released iOS 18.2 in 2024 and the company introduced its own emoji generator, called Genmoji, to Apple Intelligence-capable iPhones at that time. The Unicode Standard, a universal character encoding standard, is responsible for creating new emoji, and approved emoji are added to all devices once a year. With Genmoji, you don’t have to wait for new emoji to appear on your iPhone each year. You can just create them as you need them.

Read on to learn how to use Genmoji on iPhone to create your own custom emoji. Just note that only iPhones with Apple Intelligence, like the iPhone 17 lineup, can use Genmoji at this time.

Note: The new emoji may not display correctly for Apple users whose devices aren’t on a 26.4 software version.

How to make custom emoji

1. Open Messages and go into a chat.
2. Tap the plus (+) button next to your text box.
3. Tap Genmoji.

You can then type a description of an emoji into the text box near the bottom of your screen and tap the check mark on your keyboard to enter that description into Genmoji. You can also tap different suggestions and themes that are right above the text box. And with iOS 26 or later, you can also combine and use emoji to create others rather than describing a new emoji or using suggestions.

Your iPhone will generate a series of new emoji for you to pick from according to your description, and you can swipe through these new emoji. When you find the one you want, tap Add in the top right corner of your screen and the new emoji will be available to use as an emoji, tapback or a sticker. Now you don’t have to wait for the Unicode Standard to propose, create and bring new emoji to devices.

For more iOS news, here’s what to know about iOS 26.4 and iOS 26.3. You can also check out our iOS 26 cheat sheet for other tips and tricks.

Technologies

Save Over 20% on This Handy 10,000-mAh Anker Nano Power Bank

Keep your devices charged on the go with this Anker Nano power bank, now down to just $46.

We’ve just spotted the Anker Nano 45-watt portable power bank for just $46 at Amazon right now. This saves you $14 — a 23% discount on its list price. Though it’s $6 more than the lowest-ever price we saw during Black Friday, it’s still a solid discount when you take the rising cost of tech accessories into account. It also matches the lowest price we’ve seen in 2026. It comes in four colors: black, green, pink and white. They’re all on sale for the same price.

This Anker Nano portable charger weighs approximately 8.2 ounces and measures a compact 3.21×1.99×1.42 inches. Despite its small size, it has a retractable cable and supports fast charging in compatible Apple, Samsung, Google Pixel and other smartphones. It also has a large 10,000-mAh capacity and a smart display so you always know how much juice is left in your power bank.

The Nano can charge an iPhone 17 to up to 50% battery in an estimated 20 minutes, and is powerful enough to charge tablets and laptops. Need to charge your devices while charging your power bank? You can do so safely thanks to pass-through charging so you’ll never have to go without battery life.

We’ve also compiled a list of the best power banks for iPhones and for Android, in case this deal isn’t quite a fit for you.

Why this deal matters

If you travel, have a long commute time or are otherwise always on the go, a portable charger can help you keep your devices fully powered. This 45-watt Anker Nano power bank is compact, includes a loop that lets you keep track of it easily and has a built-in cable so you don’t have to keep up with extra cords. Amazon’s $14 discount makes this a solid deal for anyone looking for a compact power bank.