"Black Widow Pulsar Sheds Light on Evolution Mysteries"

Astronomers have identified a new kind of pulsar that consumes an orbiting companion, filling in a missing link about how some of the strangest systems in the universe evolve. While astronomers have identified dozens of these "spider" systems, they have had difficulty explaining how the systems came to be. Now, a team of astronomers has proposed a solution by finding two systems that they believe provide an evolutionary link between normal binary systems and more evolved "spider" systems.