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Cannibal stars like their food hot, XMM-Newton reveals

23 March 2006

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Artist's impression of a vast cloud of superheated gas whirling around an asteroid-sized cannibal star, part of a low-mass X-ray binary star system.

The clouds, discovered by ESA's XMM-Newton space observatory, are composed of iron vapour and other chemicals at many millions of degrees and are located where the 'river' of matter from the companion star strikes the disc. The clouds periodically block the X-ray emission from the cannibal star and cause an X-ray 'blinking'.

Credits: ESA

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Artist's impression of XMM-Newton, ESA's Earth-orbiting x-ray observatory.

Credits: ESA

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