neutron star Archives

February 20, 2023February 20, 2023 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

Some Elements Arrived on Earth by Surfing Supernova Shock Waves

Neutron-neutron star mergers are one way that heavy radioactive isotopes of elements found on Earth could be created. Courtesy ESO.

When stars die, they spread the elements they’ve created in their cores out to space. But, other objects and processes in space also create elements. Eventually, that “star stuff” scatters across the galaxy in giant debris clouds. Later on—sometimes millions of years later—it settles onto planets. What’s the missing link between element creation and deposition on some distant world?

February 15, 2023February 15, 2023 by Laurence Tognetti

Magnetars are Extreme in Every Way, Even Their Volcanoes

Artist rendition of a magnetar eruption. These could be source of fast radio bursts. (Credit: NASA Goddard Space Flight Center)

In a recent study published in Nature Astronomy, an international team of researchers led by NASA and The George Washington University examined data from an October 2020 detection of what’s known as a “large spin-down glitch event”, also known as an “anti-glitch”, from a type of neutron star known as a magnetar called SGR 1935+2154 and located approximately 30,000 light-years from Earth, with SGR standing for soft gamma repeaters. Such events occur when the magnetar experiences a sudden decrease in its rotation rate, which in this case was followed by three types of radio bursts known as extragalactic fast radio bursts (FRBs) and then pulsed radio emissions for one month straight after the initial rotation rate decrease.

February 4, 2023January 30, 2023 by Paul M. Sutter

Astronomers use Earthquakes to Understand Glitches on Neutron Stars

Simulation of a possible quadrupole magnetic field configuration for a pulsar with hot spots in only the southern hemisphere. Credits: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center

A team of astronomers have used a model of earthquakes to understand glitches in the timing of pulsars. Their results suggest that pulsars may have interiors that are far stranger than can be imagined.

December 7, 2022December 7, 2022 by Evan Gough

Colliding Neutron Stars can Generate Long Gamma-ray Bursts

Artist's illustration of a bright gamma-ray burst occurring in a star-forming region and beaming out energy into two narrow, oppositely directed jets. Image Credit: By NASA/Swift/Mary Pat Hrybyk-Keith and John Jones - http://imagine.gsfc.nasa.gov/docs/features/news/10sep08.html [1]Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by TheDJ using CommonsHelper., Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=8807284

Gamma-Ray Bursts (GRBs) are the most energetic recurring events in the Universe. Only the Big Bang was more energetic, and it was a singularity. Astronomers see GRBs in distant Universes, and a lot of research has gone into understanding them and what causes them.

A new paper is upending some of what scientists thought they knew about these extraordinary explosions.

November 14, 2022November 14, 2022 by Evan Gough

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

An artist's impression of a magnetar, a highly magnetic, slowly rotating neutron star. Credit: ESO/L. Calçada

Can a star have a solid surface? It might sound counterintuitive. But human intuition is a response to our evolution on Earth, where up is up, down is down, and there are three states of matter. Intuition fails when it confronts the cosmos.

October 26, 2022October 26, 2022 by Brian Koberlein

The Smallest, Lightest Neutron Star Ever Seen Could be a “Strange Star”

The supernova remnant HESS J1731-347 surrounding a small neutron star. Credit: Victor Doroshenko

The life of every star is a fight against gravity. Stars are so massive they risk collapsing under their own weight, but this is balanced by the heat and pressure a star generates through nuclear fusion. Eventually, that comes to an end. The outer layers of a star will be cast off, and the remaining core will become a stellar remnant. Which kind of remnant depends on the mass of the core.

August 10, 2022August 13, 2022 by Paul M. Sutter

Astronomers Were Fortunate Enough to Catch a Neutron Star Merging With Another Star

A team of astronomers have followed the evolution of a short duration gamma ray burst, one of the most intense explosions in the entire universe. This discovery makes a breakthrough for further observations of these rare events.

July 27, 2022July 27, 2022 by Carolyn Collins Petersen

The Heaviest Neutron Star Ever Seen Got There by Feasting on its Companion

Life’s not too good if you’re the companion of a black widow. Here on Earth, spiders by that name feast on their smaller significant others after mating. Out in space, some weird objects do the same thing to their closeby neighbors. They’re rapidly spinning neutron stars that slowly destroy their companion stars with powerful outflows of high-energy particles. A team at the University of California Berkeley is studying one of these so-called “black widow pulsars”, called PSR J0952-0607. Thanks to its hefty appetite, it shredded and consumed nearly all of its stellar companion. That eating spree made it the heaviest known neutron star to date.

July 17, 2022July 17, 2022 by Paul M. Sutter

A new Record for the Strongest Magnetic Field Seen in the Universe: 1.6 Billion Tesla

A massive flare ejected from a magnetar.

A team of astronomers using the Chinese Insight-HXMT x-ray telescope have made a direct measurement of the strongest magnetic field in the known universe. The magnetic field belongs to a magnetar currently in the process of cannibalizing an orbiting companion.

June 30, 2022June 30, 2022 by Andy Tomaswick

The Case is Building That Colliding Neutron Stars Create Magnetars

Magnetars are some of the most fascinating astronomical objects. One teaspoon of the stuff they are made out of would weigh almost one billion tons, and they have magnetic fields that are hundreds of millions of times more powerful than any magnetic that exists today on Earth. But we don’t know much about how they form. A new paper points to one possible source – mergers of neutron stars.