Rare ‘spider star’ spotted consuming its companion

Astronomers have spotted hints of a long-theorised system of two stars in which a rapidly spinning neutron star has been engulfed by its larger companion star, which it then stripped to its core. The neutron star is a rare example of a ‘spider pulsar’ — one that consumes the material around a companion star, or causes it to scatter away by emitting powerful beams of radio waves. The detection sheds light on processes that give rise to the mergers seen by gravitational-wave observatories — involving two neutron stars, two black holes or one of each.