Scientists—some scientists—believed that two stars were orbiting a black hole in the system HR 6819, located 1000 light years from planet Earth. (Just a hop, skip, and a jump away, then.) Other scientists doubted there was really a black hole. Now further study has confirmed that the skeptics were right. There is no black hole. Instead there’s a “stellar vampire”. What appeared to be two stars orbiting a black hole was actually two stars locked in a macabre cosmic dance, with one of the stars parasitically feeding off the other.
From the linked article: “…the two stars were much closer to each other than if a black hole was separating them…this closeness points to something a bit more insidious: stellar vampirism, where one star saps the atmosphere of its companion star. The vampire of the pair ends up gaining more mass and is able to spin much more rapidly…a ravenous star bent on sucking up the life force of its partner”.
So if we go with the trope that vampires are vulnerable to sunlight, bursting into flame and all that, what are we to make of this? Would vampires living on a planet where instead of a sun like ours they had a vampire star, would its rays lend greater strength to the vampires instead of destroying them? Intriguing idea.
