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Illustration of PSR J1311-3430, the black widow pulsar
Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/Cruz deWilde


The Widow in Black

A strange haunted beam, from which no eye could turn. Can you not detect the hideous beating? Said I not that my senses were acute? The two, born and bound together, dancing like a dervish to the wild music of a strange guitar, an awful celestial harmony, ringing out in the darkness of some fevered dream. Like the inevitable spill of water into an oppressive ebon tarn, the dissolution of a long common history. The spectral presence finally prostrate to an inexorable power, and constrained forever by grim broad bands of iron. One dead, one feeding off the living. The trembling webs of an encrimsoned stellar essence, ushered down to a phantasmagoric netherworld. The final decay, a growing ghastly fissure; stern, deep, irredeemable. Gravity is destiny, leading us to a common fate, swallowing all. Have you not seen it?
Published: October 30, 2023


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Each week the HEASARC brings you new, exciting and beautiful images from X-ray and Gamma ray astronomy. Check back each week and be sure to check out the HEAPOW archive!
Page Author: Dr. Michael F. Corcoran & E. A. Poe
Last modified Monday, 06-Nov-2023 15:00:27 EST