Powerful ‘hot wind’ spotted blasting through universe as star ‘eats’ its neighbor

A POWERFUL ‘hot wind’ has been spotted blowing through the universe.

The wind is said to be coming from a ‘hungry’ neutron star that’s currently devouring its neighbor.

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Scientists hope the creepy discovery could teach us more about the behavior of extreme objects in the universe.

Observing this behvior in stars is rare so little is currently known about the topic.

Researchers from the University of Southhampton in the UK used the most powerful telescopes on Earth and in space to observe the celestial blast of wind.

It was said to come from something called a low-mass X-ray binary (LMXB).

A LMXB is a natural space system that contains a neutron star or black hole devouring something.

In this case it was a neutron star and that star was caught ripping apart its neighboring star.

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This violent activity propels ‘discs of wind’ into space.

The wind discovery is now being referred to as Swift J1858.

Scientists have published a study about their findings in the journal Nature.

Lead author Dr Noel Castro Segura, of the University of Southampton said: “Eruptions like this are rare, and each of them is unique.

“Normally they are heavily obscured by interstellar dust, which makes observing them really difficult.

“Swift J1858 was special, because even though it is located on the other side of our galaxy, the obscuration was small enough to allow for a full multiwavelength study.”

Segura’s team discovered different types of space wind during their research.

Co-author Nathalie Degenaar, from the University of Amsterdam, added: “Neutron stars have an immensely strong gravitational pull that allows them to gobble up gas from other stars.

“The stellar cannibals are, however, messy eaters and much of the gas that neutron stars pull towards them is not consumed, but flung into space at high speed.

“This behaviour has a large impact both on the neutron star itself, and on its immediate surroundings.

“In this paper we report on a new discovery that provides key information about the messy eating patterns of these cosmic cookie monsters.”

In other news, Nasa has revealed some very important dates for Moon missions that should be happening this year.

Pulverizing asteroids could be humanity’s only chance of avoiding a similar doomsday event to the dinosaurs, scientists claim.

And, we looked into what would happen if you died in space.

This post first appeared on Thesun.co.uk