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NASA’s Chandra Finds Source of Star’s Mysterious Outbursts

Photo: NASA

Using NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, astronomers have discovered what is triggering repeated outbursts from a giant, unstable star.

A new study , published Monday in the latest issue of The Astrophysical Journal, details the discovery of a previously hidden companion object that keeps pulling material away from the massive star every 113 days as they orbit one another. This partner is either a stellar-mass black hole, or the dense collapsed core of a massive star called a neutron star.

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