Giant ‘farting’ star fires out mysterious X-rays seen 13,000 light-years away on Earth
Scientists have traced bizarre X-rays pulses nearly 13,000 light years away, and found the cause to be a massive star nearly 60 times larger than the sun
The solar event has never been recorded before (Image: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Laboratory/Cover Images)
A giant ‘farting’ star 13,000 light-years from Earth is firing out gassy bursts and causing powerful X-ray flares from a celestial neighbour.
Japanese researchers used a high tech X-ray imaging and spectroscopy device to measure huge amounts of gas flowing from a hypergiant star called Wray 997 onto its much smaller neighbour GX 301-2, causing a massive outpouring of energy never recorded before anywhere in the universe.
The celestial event, which is currently taking place in the BP Crucis system, essentially works like a massive domino effect, by which gas from the larger planets triggers an outpouring of stored energy from a smaller neutron star.
The flares are caused by extreme gas being let out by a neighbouring star
Astronomers writing in Science Advances theorised that the neutron star passes through a dense stream of gas from Wray 977 and captures some of it. The stronger flares occur nearer the giant star, where the stream is denser.
Scientists observed the system for about 16 hours on 1 February 2025, near the end of a strong flare. Changes in its X-ray spectrum showed gas moving towards the neutron star at around 335,000mph, around 500 times the speed of sound.
Wray 977, which is thought to be about 60 times larger than the sun and 40 times heavier, gets its extraordinary brightness from its continuous fart-like flow of ionised gas, known by boffins as a “stellar wind”.
Wray 977 is 60 times larger than the sun (Image: NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center Conceptual Image Laboratory/Cover Images)
While the fart-like flares were only recently recorded -because the stars involved are 13,000 light-years from Earth – they actually took place around 13 millennia ago.
Speaking on the remarkable findings, NASA researcher Roi Rahin said that they would allow scientists to test their understanding of how processes like this happen in the universe “in much greater detail” than before.
He said: ““We’ve never before seen clear indications of wind plasma falling onto a compact object. We can now test our understanding of these processes in much greater detail.”
experts say the findings are “ground breaking”(Image: DrPixel via Getty Images)
The research’s co-author Nazma Islam said of the project: “It was clear that these observations were ground breaking, but at the same time this meant the analysis had to be especially detailed.
“We could see how the dense stream of plasma acts very close to the neutron star.”
