Astronomers have discovered black widows and redbacks in space. While these cosmic objects do not kill and eat their mates, Tara shares the violent behavior of their eight-legged mates towards colleagues.
In addition to the run-of-the-mill spider star, researchers also discovered a strange black widow-redback cross breed. Scientists used the now-ruined Arecibo Telescope in Puerto Rico to find Weirdo stars.
Spider Stars are types of millisecond pulsars, or Neutron stars Which acts like precise clocks in the sky, rotating at least once every 30 milliseconds and flashing like every rotating lighthouse. Neutron stars, compressed cores of small, exploding stars, often rip apart the contents of other stars locked in binary orbit with them and use the pressure of that diffused material to reach the speed of the pulsar. Although spider stars are rare and special versions of these stars: they orbit their binary allies so closely that they explode on its surface, the spider inhales a huge amount of material that rips its partner’s limbs from the limbs.
In the new paper, researchers identify three new black widows and a redback in the galaxy. They also found a spider star that ignores taxonomy, almost like a crossbreed of two species.
Related: 12 strange things in the universe
When a spider star has significantly reduced its mate to a mass of the Sun (0.02 to 0.03 times the mass of the Sun from a tenth), the star is called a black widow. The Redbacks have tough allies that boast more than a tenth of the sun. These binary allies of the Redbacks pass intermittently between the spider star and the Earth, creating a temporary eclipse. Peers of black widows usually do not pull that trick.
The crossbreed star that appears is difficult to classify. For now, researchers have labeled it a redback because its mate sometimes eclipses its ticking light. And that mate has at least 0.055 times the mass of the sun (probably larger), which would be quite heavy for a black widow, although there is less light for the redback. For now, the exact mechanisms of that system are still a mystery.
Studies like this may be harder in the future. This paper, published January 1 arXiv The database relies on data collected between 2013 and 2018 using the Arecibo 305-meter radio telescope which is then broken down, According to the living science report.
Published on Original Living Science.
