The Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) has captured amazingly detailed images of a dead star stealing huge amounts of matter from its larger companion. These images will hopefully help scientists to better understand the behavior of matter when subjected to extreme magnetic fields.

The system under study consists  of an ordinary star and a white dwarf -  the highly dense corpse of a burned out star. While white dwarves normally take material from their companions, this particular white dwarf has a hunger out of all proportion to its relatively miniscule size.  Even with its compressed mass taken into consideration, this star's  magnetic field is unusually strong - millions of times stronger than that of our own Sun.

This white dwarf's magnetic field is channeling matter from its partner onto its poles, which creates bright spots at each pole.  SALTICAM takes brightness measurements several times per second, so the spots appear to blink on and off as it passes behind its companion in its orbit.

These changes in brightness are practically never seen in white dwarf systems, as most of these have much weaker magnetic fields. "It's a really a remarkable light curve," says Paula Szkody of the University of Washington in Seattle. "We just didn't have this kind of information on this type of system before. It's a way of looking at what happens to matter under these extreme conditions."