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A RARE collision of two stars may explain a weird cosmic outburst.

In 2002, a star called V838 Monocerotis brightened dramatically. Some researchers have suggested that a collision with another star produced the fireworks, while others have argued that the star simply 鈥渂urped鈥� after swallowing some planet-sized objects.

Now observations of X-rays from the star鈥檚 vicinity by a team led by Fabio Antonini of the Rochester Institute of Technology in New York suggest the star is spinning rapidly (). This fits with a prediction by another group in 2006 that an off-centre collision between stars could leave a rapidly rotating red giant that produces such X-rays.