It's a classic case of mistaken identity — and stellar vampirism.
The trio of researchers decided to team up to investigate HR 6819 more closely and determine which explanation was more likely.
"The scenarios we were looking for were rather clear, very different and easily distinguishable with the right instrument," Rivinius."We agreed that there were two sources of light in the system, so the question was whether they orbit each other closely, as in the stripped-star scenario, or are far apart from each other, as in the black hole scenario."
While Rivinius' original research was based on observations gathered by a relatively small telescope, the new team turned to ESO's and Very Large Telescope Interferometer for their research — two powerful instruments based in Chile that could produce more detailed images of HR 6819 than the tools used in Rivinius' first study.
With the more powerful observations, the situation in HR 6819 was clear — there are only two stars in a tight orbit, and no black hole to speak of. But the absence of a black hole is nothing to mourn. "Our best interpretation so far is that we caught this binary system in a moment shortly after one of the stars had sucked the atmosphere off its companion star," Bodensteiner said in the statement. That interpretation confirms the stellar vampirism theory.
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