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The Dead Stars That Won't Fade Quietly


The wreckage of an exploded star is meant to fade quietly, cooling over thousands of years like the embers of a fire. So astronomers were stunned when NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory caught dozens of these supernova remnants in a nearby galaxy doing the opposite, flaring and flickering in X-rays as though refusing to die. In each case a star appears to have survived its partner's explosion, only to be slowly devoured by the black hole or neutron star its companion left behind. It’s a discovery that turns the calm graveyards of dead stars into something far stranger and more alive.

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