Astronomers find star stretched to bursting point

Astronomers have found a weird double-star system - a super-fast spinning pulsar whose gravity has deformed its companion star into a giant red teardrop.

The discovery was made by astronomers from the Astronomical Observatory of Bologna and their international colleagues, using the combined powers of the Parkes radio telescope and the Hubble Space Telescope.

Added by Andrew Wright on 2002-02-21