During the interaction, a temporary disk formed around the neutron star and later broke apart. A second disk then formed, spun in the opposite direction, and disappeared.<\/p>\n
One star spent days feeding on another<\/h2>\n
Wray 977 is a blue hypergiant, roughly forty times the mass of the Sun<\/strong> and sixty times its volume.<\/p>\n The other component in the binary system is GX 301-2. It is a neutron star produced when a star died in a supernova explosion.<\/p>\n Despite having more total mass than the Sun, the neutron star is only twenty kilometers wide.<\/p>\n Wray 977 continuously loses massive amounts of gas into space.<\/p>\n As GX 301-2 moves through part of that outflow during its orbit, astronomers believe that its gravitational pull may produce an area of particularly high density in the outflow.<\/p>\n GX 301-2 passes through this area twice during each 41.5-day orbit. Each event lasts approximately four days.<\/p>\n It appears that both events result in increased X-ray brightness.<\/p>\n Astronomers were able to measure the movement of gas near the neutron star and obtain strong evidence of material falling toward<\/strong> the compact object.<\/p>\n For the first time, researchers were able to directly track the movement of this material as it approached the neutron star.<\/p>\n They measured the gas moving toward the neutron star at about 540,000 kilometers per hour.<\/p>\n As GX 301-2 initially encounters the high-density flow, the captured material develops into a turbulent disk around it, a process illustrated by NASA XRISM<\/a>. Material then spirals into this disk until it reaches the neutron star.<\/p>\n When the object penetrates further into the flow, something unexpected occurs. The disk breaks up.<\/p>\n Instead of forming an orbiting pattern, material starts falling straight onto the neutron star<\/strong>.<\/p>\n By the time it has reached near the end of the event, a small disk forms again but now spins in the reverse direction. However, once again this disk disappears as GX 301-2 leaves the flow.<\/p>\n The overall sequence appears to resemble a cosmic version of a machine<\/a> building itself up repeatedly, breaking down and reassembling in a different configuration.<\/p>\n For many years, astronomers have developed theoretical models describing how neutron stars collect material from their companion’s stellar wind<\/a>.<\/p>\n Now, thanks to BP Crucis, scientists have an opportunity to test these theories against actual observational evidence.<\/p>\n Rather than rely solely on calculations, researchers can now observe how captured material behaves shortly before reaching GX 301-2.<\/p>\n As a result, BP Crucis provides one of the clearest views<\/strong> yet of wind-fed accretion.<\/p>\n Although BP Crucis is only one such system, its behavior gives scientists a valuable opportunity to study some of the most extreme environments in the universe.<\/p>\n Each passage through the gas-flow region gives scientists another opportunity to study matter under intense gravity<\/a>.<\/p>\n These initial observations suggest that the material-transfer process is significantly messier and more complex than previously thought.<\/p>\n Direct observations of gas falling toward the neutron star now allow astronomers to test long-standing theories<\/strong>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Astrophysicists have been aware for many years that stellar wind accretion allows some dead stars to feed on material from nearby stars. Many of the powerful X-ray flares indicate that this is indeed happening. However, what has proven to be extremely difficult to measure is the actual material being captured. Recently, a binary system approximately … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":45692,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rank_math_focus_keyword":"stellar","rank_math_title":"","rank_math_description":"NASA observed the pulsar GX 301-2 feeding on its companion star's stellar wind, revealing a temporary disk that formed, broke apart, reversed direction, and disappeared during a repeating cycle.","footnotes":""},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-45685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-space"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45685","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45685"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45685\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46550,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/45685\/revisions\/46550"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45685"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=45685"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=45685"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}A four-day journey through a stream of gas<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.ecoportal.net\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/INFG-NASA-watched-a-pulsar-13000-light-years-away-feed-on-its-giant-companions-stellar-wind-as-a-temporary-disk-broke-apart-reversed-direction-and-vanished-507x1013.jpg\" "\\"\\"")
<\/p>\nAn unstable disk shifts through multiple structural phases<\/h2>\n
A long-standing idea finally has direct evidence<\/h2>\n
One unusual stellar partnership may reveal much more<\/h3>\n