Astronomical theory thwarted with laboratory products

An astronomical theory that scientists have used for the past century has been found to be flawed.

Researchers at the University of Michigan used the latest laboratory products to test the von Ziepal law, which has been followed for the past 100 years.

Astronomers use this system in order to determine differences in temperature, brightness and gravity between a planet's equator and its poles.

The Michigan Infra-Red Combiner (MIRC) instrument was used to observe Regulus, a winter star, which helped the scientists to discover that differences between temperature were much less than the old law would suggest they should be.

Associate professor at the University of Michigan Department of Astronomy John Monnier led the invention of the MIRC.

"In some cases, we found a 5,000-degree Fahrenheit difference between what the theory predicts and what our actual measurements show," Monnier comments.

Recently, the Royal Astronomical Society revealed that an X-ray binary star system has been studied by harnessing eight telescopes simultaneously by scientists in the Netherlands and Wales.