Astro-image of the day: skeleton star orbits pulsar

[mckitterick]

This is cool and creepy, the stuff of SF stories: Scientists have discovered an object about seven times the mass of Jupiter that orbits a rapidly spinning pulsar. Get this: It orbits about once an hour at about the distance of the Moon's orbit around Earth.

"This object is merely the skeleton of a star," says co-discoverer Craig Markwardt of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. "The pulsar has eaten away the star’s outer envelope, and all the remains is its helium-rich core."

Holy star-eating pulsars, Batman!

Click the image for the full story.

Best,
Chris

Comments

[chernobylred.livejournal.com]

That is possibly the sexiest Astro Photo you've posted to date.

Wow.

W-o-w.