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A neutron star that rotates at an unimaginable speed of 707 times per second also emits powerful pulses of gamma rays in the universe.
The star is at least 4,400 light-years from Earth, although its exact distance remains a mystery (for more information about this later). The celestial body is what is called a pulsar, a fast spinning neutron star, left by the collapse of a giant star. Pulsars have strong magnetic fields and, when rotating, they emit beams of radiation along their two magnetic poles. Just like a lighthouse beam, these streams can only be seen by Earthmen directed towards the Earth. The pulsars seem to blink.
The newly discovered pulsar bears the distinctly non-charismatic pseudonym PSR J0952-0607. According to the Max Planck Institute of Gravitational Physics, the star was initially detected in 2017 by the Fermi gamma ray space telescope, but no gamma bursts were initially detected. However, the low frequency network of the radio telescope network detected pulsed radio signals emitted by the star, which allowed the scientists to study some preliminary details: with a star friend one fiftieth the mass of the sun. Its rotation rate of 707 times per second makes it the fastest neutron star in the world. (The fastest, reported in the newspaper Science in 2006, runs at 716 revolutions per second.)
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Gamma ray search
Discovering the gamma ray beam of J0952-0607 was a more delicate project. Researchers led by Lars Nieder, PhD student at Max Planck, used a supercomputer called Atlas to search for data from the Fermi X-ray telescope for eight years looking for obvious signs of the star's electromagnetic beam.
"This research is extremely difficult because the Fermi gamma ray telescope recorded only the equivalent of about 200 gamma rays emitted by the weak pulsar during the 8.5 years of observation. ", said Nieder in a statement. "Meanwhile, the pulsar itself has been subject to a turnover of $ 220 billion .In other words, a gamma ray has been observed only in the past. once in a billion! "
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Fortunately, the researchers were able to detect these lucky missives, confirming that J0952-0607 is really a pulsar. But they discovered a whole new set of questions about the extreme neutron star.
Stellar Mysteries
The first surprise is that the Fermi gamma telescope did not detect any neutron star gamma pulsations before July 2011. Perhaps the pulsar's orbit has changed so that its beams be visible by Earthlings; but Nieder and his colleagues found no trace of orbital alterations. It is also possible that the amount of gamma rays emitted by the pulsar changed, but scientists can not test this idea given the already subtle signal of the distant star.
Another mystery: how far is the pulsar? Optical telescope observations revealed that the star associated with the pulsar is locked in a galactic dance with the rapidly rotating pulsar, the same side of the star still facing its hyperactive companion. (The difference in heat between the sides of the star – caused by this interaction – is detectable from the Earth.) However, while radio measurements suggest that the pulsar and its companion are at 4,400 light-years away from a distance, optical measurements suggest that they look more like 13,200 light-years away from Earth. It is not clear exactly what is right or why there is such a difference between the measurements.
The distance matters: if the optical measurements are correct, the star associated with the pulsar probably inserts into the expected density, at least on the basis of the previous measurements of the pulsar systems. If the radio measurements are more correct, the companion should be extremely dense, in a range never seen before in a companion pulsar.
Researchers are now collecting more observations of Fermi gamma rays to answer this question. They published their findings on the new pulsar on September 18 in The astrophysical journal.
Originally published on Science live.
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