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Neutron Star

All articles tagged with #neutron star

XRISM Telescope Reveals Why a Pulsar Flares as It Feeds on a Hypergiant’s Wind
science13 days ago

XRISM Telescope Reveals Why a Pulsar Flares as It Feeds on a Hypergiant’s Wind

A new study published in Science Advances explains the recurring X-ray flares of the pulsar GX 301-2 in the BP Crucis system. Observations by the NASA-JAXA XRISM mission show that the neutron star flares when it passes through a dense plasma plume ejected by its hypergiant companion, Wray 977. This is the first clear detection of stellar wind material falling onto a compact object, offering a new way to study accretion processes in binary star systems.

via Live Science|
#bp-crucis#neutron-star#science
Four Billion Tonnes in a Teaspoon: The Dense Secret of Neutron Stars
science-space3 months ago

Four Billion Tonnes in a Teaspoon: The Dense Secret of Neutron Stars

A teaspoon of neutron-star matter weighs about four billion tonnes because gravity compresses more mass than the Sun into a city-sized sphere. The article explains how neutron stars form from collapsed stellar cores, the role of neutron degeneracy pressure in stopping collapse, their extreme surface gravity and magnetic fields, and how mergers like GW170817 forge heavy elements such as gold. It also touches on interior models and how neutron stars might help probe dark matter, while noting how the “teaspoon” analogy distills the star’s extreme density into a tangible image.

via Space Daily|
#gravitational-waves#neutron-degeneracy-pressure#neutron-star
Silent Messengers: Neutrinos Illuminate Hidden Galactic Explosions
space3 months ago

Silent Messengers: Neutrinos Illuminate Hidden Galactic Explosions

Avi Loeb explains that neutrinos from Galactic supernovae penetrate interstellar dust and reveal explosions that optical observations often miss. The 1987 SN 1987A produced 24 neutrinos detected by Kamiokande-II, IMB, and Baksan, enabling estimates of the explosion’s energy and the newborn neutron star’s properties. Today’s and forthcoming detectors—Super-Kamiokande, JUNO, IceCube, Hyper-Kamiokande, and DUNE—could observe thousands to tens of thousands of events from a Milky Way supernova, allowing measurements of neutrino masses and oscillations as well as the neutron star’s mass, radius, and binding energy. Webb’s 2022 observations of a neutron-star signature in SN 1987A underscore the potential of neutrino astronomy for probing fundamental physics and stellar remnants.

via Avi Loeb – Medium|
#astrophysics#detectors#neutrinos
space3 months ago

Sun’s mass squeezed into a city-sized neutron star

Neutron stars cram roughly 1–2 solar masses into a sphere about 20 km across; a sugar-cube of their matter would weigh around a billion tonnes on Earth. This extreme density pushes matter to nuclear scales, making neutron stars natural laboratories for ultra-dense matter and helping constrain the equation of state, with many such stars acting as pulsars or magnetars.

via Space Daily|
#density#equation-of-state#mass
Feeble Radio Whispers Reveal the Blue Eye Pulsar After Decades of Silence
space3 months ago

Feeble Radio Whispers Reveal the Blue Eye Pulsar After Decades of Silence

Astronomers using the MeerKAT telescope detected faint radio pulses from the central compact object 1E 1207.4-5209—the Blue Eye Pulsar—located about 10,000 light-years away in the Milky Way. The neutron star emits radio waves every 424 milliseconds, matching its rotation and suggesting that some radio-quiet central compact objects can produce detectable radio emission under certain magnetic-field conditions, possibly triggered by a 2015 spin glitch. The finding implies a larger population of ultra-faint pulsars in the galaxy and could help explain missing pulsars in some supernova remnants, with the study published in Nature Astronomy on June 25.

via Space|
#meerkat#neutron-star#pulsars
Blue Eye Pulsar Finds Its Voice: Faint Radio Pulses Detected
science3 months ago

Blue Eye Pulsar Finds Its Voice: Faint Radio Pulses Detected

Using the MeerKAT radio telescope, astronomers detected very faint radio pulses from 1E 1207.4-5209, a central compact object at the center of a supernova remnant nicknamed the Blue Eye Pulsar, about 10,000 light-years away. The signal matches the 424-millisecond spin, marking the first detection of radio emission from this quiet neutron star after decades; a 2015 spin glitch may have reoriented or boosted its magnetic field to make the pulses detectable, suggesting many more such faint pulsars exist and possibly explaining missing pulsars in remnants like SN 1987A.

via Yahoo|
#central-compact-object#meerkat#neutron-star
Magnetar-powered gamma glow lights up a distant supernova
space4 months ago

Magnetar-powered gamma glow lights up a distant supernova

NASA’s Fermi detected gamma rays from the luminous core-collapse supernova SN 2017egm (NGC 3191, about 440 million light-years away), supporting the idea that a newborn magnetar—an ultra‑magnetized neutron star—powers the explosion. A magnetar wind nebula and related particle interactions could boost gamma-ray production and reprocess energy into visible light, explaining the unusually bright display; gamma rays begin to leak out as debris expands, with the early light curve matching models though late-time fading remains puzzling. The study also notes the upcoming Cherenkov Telescope Array could detect similar events up to ~500 million light-years, advancing understanding of magnetar engines. The work appeared in Astronomy & Astrophysics on May 20, 2026.

via Space|
#gamma-rays#magnetar#neutron-star
Milky Way’s Core May Hide an Ultra-Magnetized Pulsar
astronomy7 months ago

Milky Way’s Core May Hide an Ultra-Magnetized Pulsar

Scientists suspect a rapidly spinning, highly magnetic neutron star (a pulsar) sits near the Milky Way’s center. A Breakthrough Listen radio survey with the Green Bank Telescope (2021–2023) found a single pulsar candidate, BLPSR, around 122 rotations per second. If confirmed, such a pulsar orbiting Sagittarius A* could serve as a precise cosmic clock to test general relativity in the extreme gravity near the galaxy’s supermassive black hole, though the Galactic Center is notoriously hard to survey. Future facilities like ngVLA and SKA could help determine how many pulsars truly populate the core.

via Space|
#astronomy#galactic-center#general-relativity
XRISM reveals unexpected speeds in cosmic wind from X-ray binary
science-and-exploration1 year ago

XRISM reveals unexpected speeds in cosmic wind from X-ray binary

The XRISM mission has discovered that the winds from a neutron star system are unexpectedly dense and slower than those from supermassive black holes, challenging current understanding of how such winds form and influence their environments. The findings suggest that differences in accretion disc temperature and size may explain the variations, providing new insights into cosmic feedback mechanisms and galaxy evolution.

via European Space Agency|
#black-holes#cosmic-winds#neutron-star