Researchers discover star being consumed by its smaller, deader neighbor
"It's an old pair of stars, where one of the two moved on — when stars die of old age they become white dwarfs — but then this remnant began to eat its companion," MIT astrophysicist and the paper's lead author Kevin Burdge told"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...
The researchers found that the larger star has a similar temperature to the Sun, but has been reduced to around 10 percent of our celestial neighbor's diameter. It's now about the size of Jupiter. The white dwarf is far smaller, as it has a diameter around 1.5 times the size of Earth's. However, it has a dense core, with a mass of around 56 percent that of our Sun's.
The white dwarf has been munching away on hydrogen from the larger star's outer layers, leaving the latter unusually rich in helium. The larger star is also morphing into a teardrop shape due to the gravitational pull of the white dwarf. That's one reason for the changes in the binary system's levels of brightness.
MIT notes that the system can emit"enormous, variable flashes of light" as a result of the hydrogen-sapping process. It added that, long ago, astronomers believed these flashes to be the consequence of an unknown cataclysm. While we have a clearer understanding of the situation these days, this is more evidence, as if it were needed, that space is cool and terrifying in equal measure.
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