The giant red star revives 'zombie star' that confuses the researcher

ESA researchers discovered wind from a giant red star that helped revive a companion dead star in binary.

The Integral Space Observatory of the European Space Agency (ESA) witnessed a rare moment when the wind emanating from a giant red star swelled to revive its slow-moving "companion" as the dead star core. between the flashes of X-rays, according to Inverse. The X-ray light was discovered by Integral for the first time on August 13, 2017 from an unidentified source towards the center of the Milky Way.

The unexpected finding prompted researchers to conduct a series of observations over the next few weeks to find the source of light. Observations reveal a slow-moving neutron star with a strong magnetic field that is likely to start absorbing matter from a giant red star nearby.

Red giant system and neutron star were discovered by ESA observatory.(Video: ESA).

Stars with masses of up to eight times greater than the Sun will evolve into giant red stars at the end of their life. Their outer layers swelled and expanded millions of kilometers. The dust-covered crust was blown away from the star by relatively slow winds of several hundred kilometers per second.

Even stars 25 to 30 times more massive than the Sun will also run out of fuel and explode in supernova explosions, sometimes leaving a spinning star with a strong magnetic field, called. This core has nearly 1.5 times the mass of the Sun with a diameter of only 10 km, making them one of the most dense objects ever known.

It is not uncommon, but the new system consists of a neutron star and a particularly rare red giant and is named "symbiotic X-ray binary". Researchers have found no more than 10 star systems of this type.

"Integral encounters a unique moment in the birth of a rare binary star system , " said Enrico Bozzo, lead author of the study at the University of Geneva. "The giant red star releases a slow wind that is sufficiently dense to provide material for the companion neutron star, causing a high level of energy from the star core to skyrocket for the first time."

Stars in the system have many strange points. The XMM-Newton telescope of NASA's ESA and NuSTAR shows that the neutron star is nearly two hours long, very slow compared to other neutron stars that can spin many times per second. But the result of the star's first magnetic field measurement indicates that it has a surprisingly strong magnetic field.

A strong magnetic field is often a sign of a young neutron star. This magnetic field is thought to fade over time while the giant red star is much older. The opposite thing makes them an unusual pair when they grow up side by side.

"These objects are confusing. Maybe the neutron star's magnetic field has not disintegrated much over time, or neutron stars actually formed later in the history of binary. That means it collapses from a white dwarf star neutron star by providing material to a giant red star for a long time, instead of the result of a conventional supernova explosion from a large star with a short life span, " Bozzo speculated.

In the system there is a young neutron star and an old giant red star, sometimes the wind comes from a bulging red star that will sweep through the small star, slow its rotation and emit X-rays. "We will continue. Follow up to see how the star system will react in the event of a long wind, but we have not seen any significant changes , ' Bozzo said.