Friday, December 13, 2013

This Spooky X-Ray ‘Hand’ Demonstrates A Pulsar Star Mystery

This Spooky X-Ray ‘Hand’ Demonstrates A Pulsar Star Mystery:
This X-ray nebula appears to look like a human hand. The ghostly shape comes courtesy of a pulsar star called PSR B1509-58 (B1509 for short) that is just 12 miles or 19 kilometers in diameter. The nebula itself is 150 light-years across. Image taken by NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory. Credit: NASA/CXC/CfA/P. Slane et al.
This Spooky X-Ray ‘Hand’ Demonstrates A Pulsar Star Mystery
This X-ray nebula appears to look like a human hand. The ghostly shape comes courtesy of a pulsar star called PSR B1509-58 (B1509 for short) that is just 12 miles or 19 kilometers in diameter. The nebula itself is 150 light-years across. Image taken by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory. Credit: NASA/CXC/CfA/P. Slane et al.
That spooky hand in the image above is producing questions for scientists. While the shape only coincidentally looks like a human hand, scientists are still trying to figure out how a small star produced such a large shape visible in X-rays.
Pulsar star PSR B1509-58 (or B1509 for short) is a 12-mile (19-kilometer) remnant of a much larger star that exploded and left behind a quickly spinning neutron star. Energy leaves mostly via neutrino (or neutral particle) emission, with a bit more coming out via beta decay, or a radioactive process where charged particles leave from atoms.
Using a new model, scientists found that so much energy comes out from neutrino emission that there shouldn’t be enough left for the beta decay to set off the X-rays you see here in this image, or in other situations. Yet it’s still happening. And that’s why they’re hoping to take a closer look at the situation.
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Read the rest of This Spooky X-Ray ‘Hand’ Demonstrates A Pulsar Star Mystery (272 words)

© Elizabeth Howell for Universe Today, 2013. |Permalink |No comment |
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