NASAs Kepler, Swift Missions Harvest Pumpkin Stars

Astronomers using observations from NASA s Kepler and Swift missions have discovered a group of rapidly spinning stars that produce Xrays at more than 100 times the peak levels ever seen from the sun. The stars, which spin so fast they ve been squashed into pumpkinlike shapes, are thought to be the result of close binary systems where two sunlike stars merge. The 18 stars rotate in just a few days, on average, compared to the sun s nearly one month rotation. Their rapid rotation greatly amplifies the sa