![]() ![]() "Since we don't yet know how matter works at these densities, the existence of this neutron star is an important probe of these physical extremes," Mr. Romani added.Ī black hole's event horizon is the point of no return beyond which anything including light gets sucked in irretrievably. If it was any heavier it should collapse to a black hole, and then the stuff inside would be behind the event horizon, forever sealed off from any observation," Mr. "So as the heaviest neutron star known, this object presents the densest material in the observable universe. "The heavier the neutron star, the denser the material in its core," said Roger Romani, director of Stanford University's Center for Space Science and Astrophysics and a co-author of the research published this week in the Astrophysical Journal Letters. Only one other neutron star is known to spin more quickly than this one. As it spins, these beams appear from the perspective of an observer on Earth to pulse - akin to a lighthouse's rotating light. The one described by the researchers is a highly magnetized type of neutron star called a pulsar that unleashes beams of electromagnetic radiation from its poles. The researchers said the neutron star, wildly spinning at 707 times per second, has a mass about 2.35 times greater than that of our sun, putting it perhaps at the maximum possible for such objects before they would collapse to form a black hole.Ī neutron star is the compact collapsed core of a massive star that exploded as a supernova at the end of its life cycle. Astronomers have observed the most massive known example of an object called a neutron star, one classified as a "black widow" that got particularly hefty by gobbling up most of the mass of a stellar companion trapped in an unhappy cosmic marriage.
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