Cosmic Cannibalism

The discovery of a super-dense, whirling star in the process of devouring its orbiting companion could shed new light on some of the most mysterious objects in the universe, astronomers reported last week. They have dubbed this two-star system a "black widow binary," after the spider that devours her mate. The "black widow" is a pulsar-a collapsed star in which mass greater than that of the sun is compressed into a space smaller than Boston. The discovery was reported at a gathering in Boston of the American Astronomical Society (AAS). Most pulsars spin about once a second. The black widow pul...