The smaller, brighter, hotter star (left) is losing mass to its bigger companion (right) UCL / J. daSilva
A distant star is being eaten by its companion, but it is getting ready to take its revenge. The pair make up the most massive contact binary – two stars that are so close together they are technically touching – ever found.
The pair of stars is called SSN 7, and it is located in a star-forming region called NGC 346 in the Small Magellanic Cloud, a galaxy about 200,000 light years away. Matthew Rickard at University College London and Daniel Pauli…
