Astronomers spot two white dwarfs doomed to die in a quadruple detonation

Astronomers have spotted two hefty white dwarf stars – highly compact stellar embers – orbiting close together that appear destined to die in an extraordinarily violent quadruple detonation.

The two stars, gravitationally bound to each other in what is called a binary system, are located in our Milky Way galaxy about 160 light-years from Earth – relatively close in cosmic terms. A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km).

White...