Fast giant rotators in the Kepler+Swift survey

An international team including Elena Mason discovered 18 giant and subgiant stars that are very fast rotators in the combined Kepler and Swift survey (read it in The Astrophysical Journal). These stars are very rare and very interessant for the study of stellar structure and evolution. They could be the final phase of a binary system that is merging into a single star (video). This is an hypothesis suggested forty years ago, remained, until now, with the observational support of only three stars. Read more on media INAF.