NASA scientists spot 'cosmic pumpkin' stars

This might be the closest that we'll ever get to finding the Great Pumpkin! Scientists studying data from NASA's Kepler space telescope have observed a strange set of spooky stars that look just like giant pumpkins in the sky.

The group of 18 stars spins so rapidly that they have been "squashed" into a pumpkin-like shape, scientists say. The oddballs appear to be binary systems, where two previously separate stars have merged into one mega-pumpkin star.

KSw 71, the largest of the celestial pumpkins, is 10 times larger than our Sun and is capable of producing more than 4,000 times the X-ray emissions.

The pumpkin-like stars are detailed in a forthcoming study in The Astrophysical Journal.