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©Andy Beardmore 		An animation of a cataclysmic variable, consisting of a solar-like star transferring material onto its white dwarf companion via an accretion disc. The novae and dwarf novae are sub-classes of the cataclysmic variables, which undergo periodic eruptions due to a thermonuclear runaway on the surface of the white dwarf or instabilities in the accretion disc (as indicated in this simulation by Mike Truss, Leicester), respectively.