A star that may be in a death spiral wants the universe to know about it. Every four and a half days it creates a burst of X-rays. The cause of those outbursts may be leading to the star’s demise.

The possibly dying star is in a galaxy that’s about 300 million light-years away. During evening twilight now, that spot is quite low in the west, below the bright star Arcturus.

According to a recent study, the story probably involves the star; a black hole, nicknamed Ansky, that’s a million times the mass of the Sun; and a wide disk of hot gas around the black hole.

The star is following a tilted orbit around the black hole. Every few days, the star plunges through the disk. That heats the gas around the star, so gas blows away from the disk in bubbles that may be as massive as the planet Jupiter.

Each passage robs the star of a bit of its orbital energy, so it spirals closer to the black hole. If the star is the mass of the Sun, it could last another five or six years before it dives into the black hole or is ripped apart by the black hole’s gravity. If the star is heavier, it could survive a little longer.

Astronomers discovered the system in observations by two X-ray telescopes in space. They’ll use those same telescopes to watch the system in the years ahead. If the outbursts get more frequent, it’ll confirm they’re on the right track, and the star is on the wrong one – headed toward its destruction.

Script by Damond Benningfield