Eating its way to new extremes (Image: NASA/CXC/M. Weiss)
Update on 27 October: Another high-mass pulsar weighing 1.97 solar masses was reported by a team led by Paul Demorest of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Charlottesville, Virginia (Nature, vol 467, p 1081). Although the calculated mass for that pulsar, called J1614-2230, is lower than that of the black widow pulsar, the uncertainty in the measurement is smaller: +/- 0.04 solar masses vs 0.12 solar masses for the black widow pulsar.
A CANNIBALISTIC collapsed star is growing so fat from the partner it is slowly devouring that it is…
