The Mystery of the Disappearing Star

Last month, Popular Science released an article  based on a paper in The Astrophysical Journal about a star that astronomer have been studying for the past years that has recently seemingly disappeared. So how does one misplace a star?

The star is actually a pulsar, or a "rotating neutron star, the result of a massive star collapsing in on itself." It emits beams of electromagnetic radiation that astronomers can observe and use to track the pulsar.

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The star also makes up half of a binary star system called J1906, rotating around another star, which leads to how the star "disappeared." The mass of the companion star creates a "sinkhole" in space-time. Now the pulsar's radio waves cannot reach Earth and the star has become unobservable. 

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This phenomena is called geodetic precession. Einstein's theory of relativity can explain how the star's axis is tilted by the warp in space-time, until the previously visible radiation is no longer visible on Earth. 

Fear not, the pulsar is estimated to be visible again in less than 160 years.