Einstein Probe Spots Rare X-ray Burst from Unusual Stellar Pair

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Einstein Probe space telescope spotted rare X-ray flashes from a peculiar star pair 200,000 light-years away in Small Magellanic Cloud.

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A massive star 12 times bigger than Sun pairs with a dense white dwarf star, creating bright X-ray explosions visible from Earth.

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The star duo started their cosmic journey 40 million years ago as two large stars, before one began stealing material from the other.

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Einstein Probe's special 'lobster eye' design with 432 sensors caught these faint X-ray bursts that other telescopes typically miss.

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The white dwarf star, now 20% heavier than Sun, might soon either collapse into a neutron star or explode as a supernova.

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NASA's Swift, NICER, and ESA's XMM-Newton telescopes joined forces to study these mysterious X-ray flashes.

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Chinese Academy of Science leads this international space mission with ESA and Germany's Max Planck Institute support.

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Scientists published their findings about this rare star system in The Astrophysical Journal Letters, advancing stellar evolution research.

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