neutron star

Record-Breaking Magnetar was There in the Data All Along

The cosmic zoo has strange beasts that astronomers stumble across in the most fascinating ways. Not long ago a team…

8 months ago

The Heaviest Neutron Stars Could Have Strange Matter Cores

Physics gets weird at the extremes. Astrophysics usually deals with the extremely large - large energies, large gravities, and lots…

10 months ago

Neutron Star Behaves Like a Mini-quasar

There's a wobbly X-ray-bright binary object in our galaxy called Hercules X-1 that's blowing a mighty wind off to surrounding…

12 months ago

The Neutron Star That Thinks It’s a Black Hole

Black holes and neutron stars are among the odder denizens of the cosmic zoo. They're both dense collections of matter…

1 year ago

Astronomers Go Hunting for Mysterious Q-balls

Our universe may feature large, macroscopic clumps of dark matter, known as q-balls. These q-balls would be absolutely invisible, but…

1 year ago

Some Elements Arrived on Earth by Surfing Supernova Shock Waves

When stars die, they spread the elements they've created in their cores out to space. But, other objects and processes…

1 year ago

Magnetars are Extreme in Every Way, Even Their Volcanoes

In a recent study published in Nature Astronomy, an international team of researchers led by NASA and The George Washington…

1 year ago

Astronomers use Earthquakes to Understand Glitches on Neutron Stars

A team of astronomers have used a model of earthquakes to understand glitches in the timing of pulsars. Their results…

1 year ago

Colliding Neutron Stars can Generate Long Gamma-ray Bursts

Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) are the most energetic recurring events in the Universe. Only the Big Bang was more energetic, and…

1 year ago

New Observations Confirm That a Magnetar has a Solid Surface and No Atmosphere

Can a star have a solid surface? It might sound counterintuitive. But human intuition is a response to our evolution…

1 year ago