51�Թ�

Though one might be tempted to assume that these stars evolve at the same rate, more massive stars tend to live shorter lives and go through the stages of stellar evolution much faster than their lower mass companions.

Finding these post-common envelope systems that contain both a "dead" stellar remnant and "living" star -- otherwise known as white dwarf-main sequence binaries -- provides a unique way to investigate this extreme phase of stellar evolution.

"Binary stars play a huge role in our universe," says lead author Steffani Grondin, a graduate student in the David A. Dunlap Department for Astronomy & Astrophysics at U of T. "This observational sample marks a key first step in allowing us to trace the full life cycles of binaries and will hopefully allow us to constrain the most mysterious phase of stellar evolution."

Described in a new study published in The Astrophysical Journal, this breakthrough offers new insights on an extreme phase of stellar evolution, and one of the biggest mysteries in astrophysics.

She expects that the star system will be important for studying stellar evolution and collapse.