Think of the word “Vampire” and you will probably think of a fanged mythological monster who survives on human blood and not of a scientific phenomena. Yet a vampire star is just like the mythological vampire, and can make the beginning of an interesting science project.

Of course it does not survive on blood, but it does prey on the companion star’s mass and becomes more luminous while the companion star withers away. Astromers at the European Southern Observatory’s Paranal Observatory have used 4 telescopes to study such a vampire star and its companion.

Using the images that they gained they are now in a position to calculate the mass of the larger vampire star. This unusual pair of stars exist in the constellation of Lepus. Also known as the Hare constellation. The two stars have the approximate distance between the Earth and the Sun and tend to circle around each other in 260 days.

The hotter star is the Vampire Star and the cooler one is fast loosing its mass to it. In fact in this rather unique double star system the hotter star has already consumed half the mass of the cooler companion star. The Astronomers are now hoping to see soon just how this science project concludes.