Researchers have discovered a hybrid star between the black widow and the red-backed black spider using data from the destroyed Arecibo telescope.
Spider stars are neutron stars that act like precise clocks in the universe, spinning at a speed of at least 30 milliseconds per spin and flashing like a beacon with every spin. A neutron star is the microscopic nucleus of an exploding star, which normally attracts matter from other stars into binary orbits and uses the repulsion of that matter to increase its speed. Spider stars are very rare and special versions of neutron copies. They spin so close to the companion star that they absorb a lot of material, like a spider tearing apart a partner’s limbs.
In the new study, scientists have identified three black widow spider stars and one red-backed black-backed spider star in the Milky Way. They also found a near-hybrid star between the two stars.
When a spider drops the mass of a companion star below 1/10 the mass of the Sun (about 0.02 to 0.03 solar mass), it is known as a black widow. The black red-backed spider gives the remaining companion a tenth of the Sun’s mass. Its companion star periodically passes between the spider star and Earth, temporarily obscuring the light it emits.
The newly discovered hybrid star is difficult to classify. Its companion star has a mass of at least 0.055 solar mass, too heavy for a black widow but too light for a black red-backed spider. Currently, researchers at many universities, including the University of Washington, the University of Virginia, and the University of California, still do not know the exact mechanism leading to this system. They published the results on the arXiv database on January 1, based on Arecibo data collected between 2013 and 2018.
