Publication of FT Observations by Oundle School
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Mark Wells, a teacher at Oundle School, Northamptonshire has been included as an author of a paper recently published in the prestigious "Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society" journal. His observations of a binary star system with FT North were included along with data collected by a group led by Matt Burleigh at the University of Leicester.
As well as having Mr Wells listed as an author, the pupils of Oundle School are thanked for their contribution in the acknowledgements of the paper. Section 2.1 of the paper details the contribution made by the school and shows how their observations contributed to the knowledge of the system as a whole.
The system is a particularly rare type of binary where a white dwarf and a brown dwarf orbit a common centre of mass. The white dwarf is the product of the death of a low mass star, whereas a brown dwarf is often referred to as a 'failed star', one which never quite had enough mass to 'switch on' as a true star. If confirmed, this will be the first system where the two separate stars are close enough to interact gravitationally. with each other.
