When white dwarfs—the hot remnants of stars like our sun—are orbited closely by another star, they sometimes steal mass away ...

Only a few dozen of these short-lived binaries exist in the galaxy at a time, making the serendipitous find extremely ...

The team discovered a tight binary star surrounded by an expanding shell of material. This shell is matter is leftover from a stage in the stars' evolution called the common envelope phase. This ...

Astronomers have identified a rare type of binary star system containing a rapidly spinning millisecond pulsar and a helium star companion, formed via common envelope evolution. Although such ...

More information: Z. L. Yang et al, A pulsar-helium star compact binary system formed by common envelope evolution, Science (2025). DOI: 10.1126/science.ado0769.

But in common envelope evolution, “the companion star is so large that its outer layers engulf the neutron star as well,” Lorimer said. “This acts as a brake on the whole binary system.” ...

When white dwarfs-the hot remnants of stars like our Sun-are orbited closely by another star, they sometimes steal mass away from their companion. The ...

If the binary is separated by less than 500 times the width of the sun, the companion star of the red giant becomes embedded within its extended, tenuous layers, hence the phrase "common envelope." ...

Astronomers may have discovered a rare type of binary star system, where one star used to orbit inside its partner. In the new study, astronomers investigated a pulsar known as PSR J1928+1815 ...