This ignites a chain reaction, where individual electrons are effectively pushed into the protons, converting them into uncharged neutrons. The gravity is so strong during the collapse that the electrons are converted into something else — neutrons — to fulfill the exclusion principle. This is what prevents the star from becoming a singularity or a black hole. As an aside, the key difference between the formation of a white dwarf also a very dense remnant that is formed from the death of a sunlike star and neutron stars is that the atoms do remain intact, but have been pulled incredibly close together.
This, in essence, is the result of millions of years worth of fusion that happens in only a split second! The final product has a density equal to trillion times that of water — yes you heard right: One hundred trillion.
So, how are neutron stars linked to pulsars? Well, they are two sides of the same coin. When they were first discovered, the predictability of the flashes made scientists question whether or not such a phenomenon could be produced naturally. But this was quickly shot down as we began to unravel the mystery surrounding their existence. Neutron stars form when a massive star explodes at the end of its life and leaves behind a super-dense, spinning ball of neutrons.
These stellar corpses emit intense beams of radio waves from their poles and are called pulsars. Most pulsars rotate just a few times per second, but some spin hundreds of times faster. These so-called millisecond pulsars whip around so quickly because they are thought to have stripped mass — and angular momentum — from companion stars at some point in their histories.
The previous record holder, which spins at Hz, was discovered in Regular variations in the optical and X-ray light corresponding to the orbital period of the stars support this interpretation. A team of astronomers from the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, MA pointed out that the X-ray signature and variability of the light from 47 Tuc W are nearly identical to those observed from an X-ray binary source known as J They suggest that these similarities between a known millisecond pulsar and a known X-ray binary provide the long-sought link between these types of objects.
In theory, the first step toward producing a millisecond pulsar is the formation of a neutron star when a massive star goes supernova. If the neutron star is in a globular cluster, it will perform an erratic dance around the center of the cluster, picking up a companion star which it may later swap for another.
As on a crowded dance floor, the congestion in a globular cluster can cause the neutron star to move closer to its companion, or to swap partners to form an even tighter pair. Like all stars , our sun rotates on its axis. You can't tell because staring at the sun long enough will permanently damage your eyeballs. Neutron stars rotate extremely rapidly after their formation due to the conservation of angular momentum; in analogy to spinning ice skaters pulling in their arms, the slow rotation of the original star's core speeds up as it shrinks.
A newborn neutron star can rotate many times a second. Why do the millisecond pulsars spin so fast? Accretion of matter from a nearby binary companion spins them up. Since all stars rotate, the principle of conservation of angular momentum predicts that as a massive star collapses it must rotate faster to conserve angular momentum. Bottom line: An international team of astronomers have found the fastest spinning star ever discovered.
The star , called VFTS , rotates at a dizzying 1 million miles per hour, or times faster than our sun. It lies in a neighboring dwarf galaxy, about , light-years from Earth.
Starquake may refer to: Starquake astrophysics , a phenomenon when the crust of a neutron star undergoes a sudden adjustment. Quasars inhabit the center of active galaxies, and are among the most luminous, powerful, and energetic objects known in the universe , emitting up to a thousand times the energy output of the Milky Way, which contains billion— billion stars.
A hypernova alternatively called a collapsar is a very energetic supernova thought to result from an extreme core-collapse scenario. Probably even more dangerous would be radiation from a neutron star's magnetic field. Magnetars are a variation of neutron stars, and they somehow manage to be even scarier.
0コメント