About 7000 light years away, a pulsar is under the magnifying glass. This rapidly spinning stellar corpse is known as “the black widow”, because it is slowly devouring its neighbouring star. And what’s left over has now let us zoom in to see the pulsar up close.

The black widow pulsar, officially called B1957+20, rotates more than 6000 times a second, sweeping the sky with a beam of light as it turns. It orbits its partner, …