You could think of it as the real dancing with the stars. Two white dwarf stars have been found twirling around each other to make a complete orbit in less than every 13 minutes. And they provide a chance to test ideas about generalrelativity and gravitational waves. The system is described in a paper accepted by the Astrophysical Journal Letters.
最近，科學家發現了兩顆白矮星，以小于13分鐘的周期的彼此繞轉。觀測這兩顆恒星，可以為驗證廣義相對論和重力波理論提供數據。這個雙星系統發表在近期的《天體物理學雜志快報》上。

One of the stars is about the size of Earth, but has more than half the mass of the Sun. A penny as dense as the star would weigh half a ton here. The other star is about 60 times our size and has about half the mass of its companion.
雙星系統中的一顆只有地球大小，但其質量超過太陽質量的一半，如果用這顆星球的物質鑄造一枚硬幣，它（在地球上的）重量是五百公斤。另外一顆的體積是地球的60倍，質量是較小星球的一半左右。

Astronomers estimate that the partners will collide in about 900,000 years. At that time, they could form a stable binary star, or merge into a single, rapidly spinning white dwarf, or go supernova. In the meantime, they provide a place to look for gravitational waves. Because they’re not exchanging mass now, gravitational waves should account for the loss of energy that brings them closer every year. Which for each of them around the other is just a few podcasts long.
天文學家估計，這對白矮星可能會以這樣的方式繼續繞轉90萬年。之后的結局有幾種：一個是它們形成一個穩定的雙星系統；二是撞在一起，融合形成一顆快速自轉的白矮星；三是相撞發生超新星爆發。而在這之前，可以通過它們來觀測重力波的存在。因為目前兩顆白矮星之間沒有物質交換，只有用重力波可以解釋為什么有能量損耗，導致它們逐年靠近幾個波長。