A Tale of two stars (IMAGE)
Caption
Einstein Probe captured the X-ray flash from a very elusive celestial pair, consisting of a big, hot star, more than 10 times larger than our Sun, and a small compact white dwarf, with a mass similar to our star.
Scientists think that the couple started off together, as a better-matched binary pair consisting of two rather big stars, six and eight times more massive than our Sun.
The bigger star exhausted its nuclear fuel earlier and started to expand, shedding matter to its companion. First, gas in its puffed-up outer layers got pulled in by the companion; then its remaining outer shells got ejected, forming an envelop around the two stars, which later became a disc, and finally dissolved.
By the end of this drama, the companion star had grown to be 12 times the mass of the Sun, while the outstripped core of the other had collapsed to become a white dwarf of just over one solar mass. Now, it is the turn of the white dwarf to steal and gobble up material from the outer layers of the Be star.
Credit
ESA
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