"Exploding 'Vampire' Star Unveils Cosmic Cannonball Mystery"
Astronomers have discovered that a dead star, known as PSR J1023+0038 or J1023, is feeding on a companion star and periodically firing out cosmic cannonballs. This pulsar, located 4,500 light years away, switches between two distinct modes of brightness. Researchers found that the mode-switching is caused by an interplay between the high-energy stream of particles blowing from the pulsar and matter falling toward it. When in its low-power mode, the pulsar expels matter in the form of a narrow jet, which accumulates close to the pulsar and gets heated up by the pulsar winds, resulting in the high-power mode. The jet eventually removes the hot material, causing the system to dim and switch back to the low-power phase.