Whip It Good! Star's Radiation Beam Sparks Cosmic Light Show

The whipping culprit is a white dwarf star (the collapsed remains of a star that ran out of fuel) that's energizing nearby electrons and accelerating them up to almost the speed of light, creating a beam of radiation, according to a statement from the European Southern Observatory. As the white dwarf spins like a record, the radiation beam whips around with the star, and slaps the nearby companion, a red dwarf star. This apparently causes the entire system, known as AR Scorpii, to release intens