--- title: "Pulsar Devours Neighbor, Becomes Heaviest Neutron Star Ever Observed" description: "Pie In the Sky Watch out, because this thing disintegrates entire stellar masses: a rapidly rotating collapsed star known as a pulsar made a meal out of its neighboring star, virtually devouring it whole. Its engorging turned the pulsar into the densest neutron star ever observed, according to scientists who observed the cosmic collision. Weighing […]" date: "2022-07-27" modified: "2022-07-27" authors: - name: "Frank Landymore" job_title: "Contributing Writer" link: "https://futurism.com/authors/flandymore" url: "https://futurism.com/the-byte/pulsar-devours-neighbor-becomes-heaviest-neutron-star-ever-observed" categories: - "Science & Energy" tags: - "neutron star" - "pulsar" - "stars" - "the digest" --- # Pulsar Devours Neighbor, Becomes Heaviest Neutron Star Ever Observed ![A "black widow" pulsar is devouring its neighboring star, and in the process has become the densest neutron star ever recorded.]() *\Image: ESA\* ## Die In the Sky Watch out, because this thing eats entire stellar masses: a rapidly rotating collapsed star known as a [pulsar]() is making a meal out of its neighboring star, nearly devouring it whole. That engorging has already turned the pulsar into the densest neutron star ever observed, [according to scientists]() who observed the cosmic collision. Weighing in at 2.35 solar masses after its meal, it’s now the heaviest neutron star ever recorded, too. Neutron stars are some of the densest objects in the Universe — so dense that, [in one case](), just a sugar cube-sized piece of one would weigh 100 million tons. They form when a much larger star collapses in on itself during a supernova. In the aftermath, a neutron star may end up spinning rapidly — 707 times per second, in this case — which makes it a pulsar. ## Death Star Turns out this pulsar, designated PSR J0952-0607, was pretty hungry. It’s what’s known as a "black widow" pulsar, a reference to how female black widow spiders eat the companion male after mating. If a pulsar and another star drift too close, the ridiculously concentrated gravity of the pulsar shreds the unsuspecting neighbor to bits, siphoning its mass. Things get weird when matter gets as dense as it does in a neutron star. If PSR J0952-0607 is as dense as the scientists predict, the scientists say its interior may have to be a mixture of quarks and nuclei, as opposed to whole atoms. If things get any heavier, a neutron star should collapse into a black hole, but the threshold at which that occurs is unknown. "We know roughly how matter behaves at nuclear densities, like in the nucleus of a uranium atom," said one of the study's authors Alex Filippenko, a professor of astronomy at UC Berkeley, in a [press release](). "A neutron star is like one giant nucleus, but when you have one-and-a-half solar masses of this stuff, which is about 500,000 Earth masses of nuclei all clinging together, it’s not at all clear how they will behave." The scientists hope that by observing these "black widow" pulsars, they can determine just how large neutron stars can be, and what's happening at the quantum level. **More on stars:** [*Scientists Predict That The Solar System Could Collapse If a Star Flew Too Close*]() ## Author At Futurism, my work has often centered on bringing a sense of clarity and insight to complex topics ranging from the regulation of emerging technologies to the esoteric ideologies of Silicon Valley executives, while striving not to lose the poetic sense of awe inspired by often-obscure fields like astrophysics and quantum computing. I broke the story of CNET using AI to produce articles that turned out to be riddled with factual errors and plagiarism — a dam-breaking inflection point, as I've reported, that's inspired copycats and endless discourse while beguiling stakeholders ranging from tech giants to purveyors of spam around the web. My work at Futurism has been cited by publications including CBS News, the Los Angeles Times, Vice, Gizmodo, Engadget, the Verge, and Vanity Fair. I grew up in locales ranging from India to China, and now live in the exotic suburbs of Virginia. In my free time, I'm an avid reader of weird sci-fi literature, an aficionado of East Asian cinema, and, regrettably, a relapsed gamer. Allegedly, I’m working on a debut novel, currently untitled. ### Author social links [Bluesky]()