That was the title of an article in the June 2008 Astronomy magazine.

But what really got me wondering is the statement on page 36, under the "short duration gamma ray bursts" panel was the statements: 1. Two neutron stars circle each other in a close gravitational dance. 2. eventually, the stars gravity pulls them closer, and they spiral toward each other. 3. Their dance ends in an explosive collision.

Now, how would 2 objects in a stable orbit around each other "spiral towards each other"?

I can understand accretion disks - gas orbiting a body (such as a black hole) would lose orbital energy via friction and other processes so that it can "fall in" to the black hole.

But I cannot understand how 2 bodies in stable orbits would lose orbital energy - and even if they did, their new orbits would be stable.

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The Heavens Declare the Glory of Mathematics

Gravitional radiation loss - in binary massive compact objects it is significant.

m1omg. Right, and technically all objects in orbit around each other emit it.(even a pair of dancing whooping cranes)...so the word "stable" is relative....kind of like the arbitrary cutoff for radioactive nuclides. At what point do you call them stable? Tidal "locking" is metastable too, and shifts through other resonances. Nothing lasts forever. pete

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A third rate theory forbids
A second rate theory explains after the fact
A first rate theory predicts...A. Lomonosov