U Geminorum Star

U Geminorum star, any of a class of irregular variable stars that display sudden increases in brightness so great that they are sometimes called dwarf novae. Some have been observed to brighten by as much as 5 magnitudes (100 times) in a period of hours. The prototype star, U Geminorum, brightens by as much as 5 magnitudes in a few days, declining again to normal brightness in two or three weeks. U Geminorum was the first of the class to be discovered, in 1855, by the English astronomer John Russell Hind. U Geminorum stars are binary stars with periods of less than a day and are made up of a red main-sequence star and a white dwarf star that is surrounded by a disk of material accreted from the main-sequence star. Material from the disk sometimes falls onto the white dwarf and explodes, causing the increase in brightness. Fewer than 200 U Geminorum stars are known; sometimes they are called SS Cygni stars, after the brightest known member of the class.