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    Astronomers discover a Rare ‘Black Widow’ Binary, with the Shortest Orbit yet

    May 6, 2022, Categories  Astronomy/Space

    Caption:An illustrated view of a black widow pulsar and its stellar companion. The pulsar’s gamma-ray emissions (magenta) strongly heat the facing side of the star (orange). The pulsar is gradually evaporating its partner.
    Credits:Credit: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center/Cruz deWilde

    The system is orbited by third stellar companion and may have originated near the center of the Milky Way. The flashing of a nearby star has drawn MIT astronomers to a new and mysterious system 3,000 light years from Earth. The stellar oddity appears to be a new “black widow binary” — a rapidly spinning neutron star, or pulsar, that is circling and slowly consuming a smaller companion star, as its arachnid namesake does to its mate.

    Astronomers know of about two dozen black widow binaries in the Milk...

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