The star lost its outer shell less than a few thousand years ago.
Astronomers have determined that the Gamma Dove star in the Milky Way is not an ordinary star, but a unique object — the bare core of a massive star that lost its outer shell several thousand years ago due to interactions with a low-mass companion star. This is the first discovery of its kind.
Gamma Pigeon is a very rare object, since the phase of restructuring of the naked core into a hot white dwarf takes no more than 10 thousand years, which is only one thousandth of the total lifetime of a massive star. The ejection of the outer shell of the star could have occurred less than a few thousand years ago. It is expected that the Gamma of the Pigeon will become a target for future detailed studies, both spectroscopic and astroseismological.
