A dead star 730 light years away appears to be forming a powerful structure around itself — and despite their best efforts, astronomers aren’t sure how. The cosmic corpse, designated RXJ0528+2838, is an incredibly dense stellar remnant known as a white dwarf, with a Sun-like star orbiting around it. In many cases of binary systems, the white dwarf starts stealing material from its stellar companion. Everything points to the star siphoning material from its stellar companion but without forming a disc around itself. The researchers’ best guess is that this has something to do with the white dwarf’s powerful magnetic field somehow powering the outflows.