Gravity then causes them to collapse and blow off their outer layers in a "red giant" stage ... as the white dwarf was drawn ever closer to the black hole and the size of its orbit diminished ...

Astronomers theorize that a low-mass white dwarf, a compact core of a dead star about as large as Earth, could be the culprit. A cosmic mystery surrounding a black hole some 270 million light ...

Gravity then causes them to collapse and blow off their outer layers in a "red giant" stage ... as the white dwarf was drawn ever closer to the black hole and the size of its orbit diminished ...

This would explain why the flares are speeding up, as the white dwarf is getting closer to the black hole and moving faster. But it likely won't fall in. An artist's rendering of a white dwarf ...

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) team thinks that a dead stellar core, or white dwarf, daringly teetering on the edge of the black hole is the cause of increasingly frequent ...

The white dwarf could be shedding matter and triggering the pulses observed by the researchers. As it circles closer and closer to the black hole, they hypothesize, those pulses speed up.

Gravity then causes them to collapse and blow off their outer layers in a "red giant" stage ... minutes over a period of about two years, as the white dwarf was drawn ever closer to the black hole and ...