Rare White Dwarf Found Orbiting Pulsar Reveals Star's Afterlife

Astronomers have discovered a rare binary system, NGC 362D, containing a young white dwarf orbiting a millisecond pulsar, offering a unique glimpse into a star's immediate afterlife following a period of mass transfer. The white dwarf, found in archival Hubble Space Telescope data, is the youngest ever seen paired with such a pulsar. Its lower-than-expected ultraviolet emission suggests it is still surrounded by ejected material from when it stopped feeding its neutron star companion roughly 600 million years ago. This system provides a crucial laboratory for studying the aftermath of "pulsar recycling," where a neutron star strips material from a companion star. The findings could help refine pulsar timing arrays, which use these spinning stars as precise cosmic clocks to test theories of gravity.