Astronomers have discovered a "black widow binary," a one-of-a-kind system comprised of a pulsar (rapidly rotating neutron star) orbiting and slowly consuming a smaller companion star.
Astronauts have previously identified nearly 2 dozen black widow binary blobs in the Milky Way galaxy, but the latest applicant has the relatively short orbital period yet found.
The system, ZTF J1406+1222, contains a pulsar and a companion star which circulate each other every 62 minutes. Aside from the quick orbital speed, another feature that distinguishes the system is the presence of a third distant star that appears to orbit the other 2 every 10,000 years.
This 'triple black widow' has sparked speculation on how it formed. The MIT researchers who discovered have proposed a theory: the triple system, like most black widow binaries, did arise from the a closely packed cluster of old stars recognised as a globular cluster.
Pulsars are quickly spinning neutron stars created by the breakdown of massive stars' cores. They get an extremely fast rotary period, rotating around in every few milliseconds and transmitting flashes of highly energetic gamma and X-rays.
Every black widow binary revealed to date was discovered as a consequence of the pulsar's gamma and X-ray flashes.
New Information About Our Milky Way Galaxy Is On Its Way; Read More
The Earth's planet-scale observatory network, renowned for capturing the first image of a black hole, is ready to publish new findings about centre of our Milky Way galaxy. More data about our galaxy's "groundbreaking" study will be presented on May 12 at 9 a.m. EDT (6:30pm IST).
Even though the official release is still 2 weeks away, the revelation is most likely related to the supermassive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way, known as Sagittarius A.
Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project partners will retain a series of press briefings to explain the discovery, followed by a YouTube live event for public questions. The EHT team recently completed its 2022 project, which included 7 days of remote measurements of bodies such as black holes and galaxies.
It's uncertain whether this result stems from observational data collected this year, in 2021, or from past efforts by the network, which was shut following 2 years in 2019 and 2020 due to CVOID 19.
ESO will also host an open online event on its YouTube channel beginning at 10:30 a.m. (12:00 AM IST)
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