Unlike the lonely sun, about half the stars in our Milky Way galaxy are in a long-term committed relationship with another star, orbiting each another in a celestial marriage called a binary system.
Researchers this week described one of these marriages gone wrong - a twosome that borders on the extreme, with the pair whirling around each other every 51 minutes in the fastest such orbital period known for a rare class of binary stars. As part of the drama, one star is eating its companion.
"Imagine if the moon zipped across the sky 10 times a night. That's the kind of speed we are talking about," said Massachusetts Institute of Technology astrophysicist Kevin Burdge, lead author of the study published this week in the journalBeing close does not mean they are being nice to each other, though - the white dwarf is mercilessly siphoning material from its partner.
"Basically, they were bound together for 8 billion years in a binary orbit. And now, right before the second one could end its stellar life cycle and become a white dwarf in the way that stars normally do - by evolving into a type of star called a red giant - the leftover white dwarf remnant of the first star interrupted the end of the companion's lifecycle and started slowly consuming it," Burdge said..
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