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Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

Phys.org [phys.org]:

"Using multiple telescopes that are sensitive to light in different energies we were able to trace that the initial activity happened near the companion star, in the outer edges of the accretion disk, and it took 12 days for the disk to be brought into the hot state and for material to spiral inward to the neutron star, and X-rays to be produced," she said.

In an 'accreting' neutron star system, a pulsar (a dense remnant of an old star) strips material away from a nearby star, forming an accretion disk of material spiraling in towards the pulsar, where it releases extraordinary amounts of energy—about the total energy output of the sun in 10 years, over the period of a few short weeks.

The pulsar observed is SAX J1808.4−3658 which rotates at a rapid 400 times per second and is located 11,000 light-years away in the constellation Saggitarius.

"The physics behind this 'switching on' process has eluded physicists for decades, partly because there are very few comprehensive observations of the phenomenon."

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