#pulsars

[aspaceinthecosmos]

hello! i've got some GROUNDBREAKING space news for you!

scientists have uncovered evidence for a gravitational wave background (GWB) in our universe, and the way they went about it is fascinating.

To fully understand what's going on here, we need to go into a bit of background information.

First of all: what are gravitational waves? gravitational waves are often called 'ripples' in spacetime, often caused by extremely energetic processes such as black holes colliding, or two neutron stars orbiting each other closely.

So, how did scientists figure this out? They used 67 pulsars (known as the Pulsar Timing Array) throughout the Milky Way, practically creating a galaxy-sized telescope in order to study this.

Pulsars are the extremely dense cores of massive stars, left over after they go supernova. These are fascinating on their own, but for this project, they had an essential feature: Pulsars rapidly rotate (think up to hundreds of rotations per second), spewing radiation out in pulses from their magnetic poles. For some pulsars, these radiation jets cross Earth's line of sight, and we get incredibly constant bursts of radio signals, which can be catalogued and used as a sort of standard, universal clock.

Here is a link to a gif showing the rotation of a pulsar. Please be warned for flashing and eyestrain.

For 15 years, a team of astronomers working for the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav), used radio telescopes around the globe to track minuscule changes in the signal patterns from pulsars. The changes they found are due to the slight movement of spacetime between us and the pulsars, stretching and compressing the paths of their radio waves as extremely low frequency gravitational waves pass through the universe (yes, that includes you. your atoms, as well as the atoms making up everything around you, are very slowly shifting position, dancing along to the heartbeat of the universe).

At the moment, scientists are still debating what could have caused this gravitational wave background, but some there are some leading theories: the GWB could be caused by trillions of binary black hole systems (black holes orbiting each other) throughout the universe. It could also be due to cosmic inflation, or even the big bang itself. Scientists just don't know yet, but the opportunities this discovery opens up are incredible.

The knowledge of the GWB could help us better understand the formation of early galaxies, or even help us understand the origin of the universe.

#aspaceinthecosmos #space #astronomy #outer space #just jupiter #astrophysics #gravity #gravitational waves #physics #pulsars #black holes #neutron stars #the universe #LIGO

[natureintheory]

Happy 56th anniversary of the observation of pulsars!

On 28 November 1967, while a postgraduate student at Cambridge, Bell Burnell detected a "bit of scruff" on her chart-recorder papers that tracked across the sky with the stars. The signal had been visible in data taken in August, but as the papers had to be checked by hand, it took her three months to find it.[25] She established that the signal was pulsing with great regularity, at a rate of about one pulse every one and a third seconds. Temporarily dubbed "Little Green Man 1" (LGM-1) the source (now known as PSR B1919+21) was identified after several years as a rapidly rotating neutron star.

Nice Q&A with Professor Dame Jocelyn Bell Burnell: https://www.cam.ac.uk/stories/journeysofdiscovery-pulsars

3D art featuring pulsars by me; info: https://www.olenashmahalo.com/project/nanograv

#sciart #3d #illustration #science illustration #physics #astronomy #astrophysics #3d art #art #published #portfolio #olena shmahalo #natureintheory #pulsars #pulsar #AGN #neutron star #blazar #quasar #women in stem #women in STEAM #women in science #women in art

[donniesexceptionalmind]

Greetings, it's me, your favourite purple genius & I have a special dish aka infodump for you:

✨️ Pulsars ✨️

Like I promised to a friend.

I referred to pulsars as 'dead stars', which is not incorrect:

Pulsars are rapidly rotating neutron stars that blast out pulses of radiation at regular intervals ranging from seconds to milliseconds.

The name 'pulsar' can be misleading as these neutron stars don't actually pulse by periodically shrinking & swelling in size. Their pulsing is merely a factor of their orientation in relation to our view of them.

Their light output is mostly consistent.

Pulsars have strong magnetic fields that funnel particles along their magnetic poles, accelerating them to relativistic speeds, which produces two powerful beams of light, one from each pole.

The poles of the magnetic field aren't aligned with the axis of spin of the pulsar: the beams of particles & the light they produce are swept around as the pulsar rotates.

Imagine this as a pair of open scissors spinning on one handle. One blade points upwards (axis of rotation), while the other blade is the beam of light. While the axis of rotation has the same orientation, the direction of the beam turns with the neutron star's spin.

The periodicity of pulsars is caused by these beams of light crossing the line of sight here on Earth, with the pulsar appearing to 'switch off' at points when the light is facing away from us. The time between these pulses is the 'period' of the pulsar.

✨️How do they form?✨️

Just like neutron stars, pulsars are born when stars with masses between four & eight times that of the sun run out of fuel for nuclear fusion.

When the fusion of lighter elements into heavier elements stops - iron is end of the fusion chain - the production of energy that supports the massive star against the inward pressure of its own tremendous gravity also ceases. The star begins to collapse.

The outer layers of the star are blown away in a supernova explosion with only the iron core of the massive star containing masses equivalent to that of the sun up to about 1.5 times that of our star remaining. This crushes down into a width no greater than around 19 to 27 kilometers.

This creates the neuron star: which is composed of 95% neutrons, because the collapse has forced electrons & protons together.

According to NASA, the material that comprises neutron stars is so dense that a mere teaspoon of it would weigh 4 billion tons. This is equivalent to 10,000 Empire State Buildings stacked on a tiny spoon!

This superdense material is prevented from cramming further together as the mass of the stellar core can't overcome the quantum properties of its neutrons.

If the star was massive enough to overwhelm this effect the neutron star would continue to collapse until it transforms into a black hole.

This is the 'Crab pulsar':

Image credit: NASA/CXC/ASU/J.Hester et al.

There you have it! 🌟

✨️What is so intriguing about them?

Pulsars tell about the physics of neutron stars: Under such incredible pressure, matter behaves in ways not seen before in any other environment in the universe. The strange state of matter inside neutron stars is what scientists call 'nuclear pasta': Sometimes, the atoms arrange themselves in flat sheets, like lasagna, or spirals like fusilli, or small nuggets like gnocchi.

They are considered the most reliable & accurate clocks of the universe & can be used for distance measurements!

As mentioned before: detecting gravitational waves!

(Me definitely NOT enjoying this) /s

#donatello infodumps #donnies exceptional mind #turtle net #rottmnt donnie #rottmnt autistic donnie #rise autistic donnie #autistic donatello #space #space is awesome #pulsars #rottmnt donatello #rottmnt #infodumping #infodump #space facts #neutron stars #astrophysics

[smbhax]

#science #astrophysics #gravitational waves #pulsars #supermassive black holes #astronomy #nanograv #space

[kuramirocket]

Lead study Mexican author Luis Rodríguez, a professor emeritus at the Institute of Radio Astronomy and Astrophysics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico

In 2023, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) helped identify hundreds of free-floating "rogue" planets that don't orbit a parent star. Now, astronomers have found that a pair of these planets may be producing enigmatic, hard-to-interpret radio signals.

The rogue planets spotted by JWST lie in the Orion Nebula, a long-time observational hotspot for astronomers. In total, they number over 500. This discovery bonanza was possible thanks to JWST's ability to pick up infrared radiation emitted by these relatively young planets.

Bizarrely, though, about 80 of these planets exist as pairs. Similar in mass to Jupiter, the planets orbit each other at distances ranging from 25 to 400 times the distance between Earth and the sun. These tangoing duos, called Jupiter-mass binary objects (JuMBOs), pose a huge mystery for astronomers, because the existence of these worlds challenges current theories of planet formation. Some scientists think these objects may not even be planets but rather previously unknown entities that are larger than planets but smaller than brown dwarfs, which are sometimes called "failed stars" because they blur the line between planets and stars.

The JWST data showed that JuMBOs generated infrared radiation, but the new study's authors wanted to see if these dancing objects produced radio waves. That's because different classes of cosmic objects produce distinct patterns of radio emissions. For instance, planets like Jupiter spew several types of radio signals, including gigahertz-frequency emissions thousands of times higher-pitched than an FM signal, partly because of their magnetic fields.

Spotting such signatures from the JuMBOs could help resolve their identity. The observations could also explain "why some objects have detectable radio emission and others do not," lead study author Luis Rodríguez, a professor emeritus at the Institute of Radio Astronomy and Astrophysics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico, told Live Science in an email.

To find radio wave "snapshots" of the Orion Nebula where the JuMBOs reside, the scientists combed through archives of observations maintained by the U.S. National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO). They found just one pair that apparently emits radio waves: JuMBO 24. Itself an oddity among the oddball objects, it's the heaviest of the JuMBOs, and also the one with the tightest space between its component planets.

A decade's worth of data the research team collated showed that the radio waves remained steady but strong, with a power of roughly a quarter of a ton of TNT and frequencies of 6 to 10 gigahertz. The radio waves also weren't circularly polarized, meaning they lacked spiral, twisting electric fields, the team reported in their study, published Jan. 8 in The Astrophysical Journal Letters.

But these features aren't what astronomers expect of signals created by planets." Circular polarization is an unambiguous indicator of the presence of magnetic fields," Rodríguez said. Without this, the team can't say definitively that the signals come from JuMBO 24 (assuming the planets have magnetic fields). Besides, radio emissions from other exoplanets are more variable and less intense.

Even if JuMBO 24 isn't a pair of planets but rather another type of cosmic duo, the signals are unusual. Signals from brown dwarfs are very different from the newly identified radio beams. The beams' brightness and frequency even ruled out the possibility of pulsars, the rapidly spinning cores of dead stars that produce pulses of radio waves at regular intervals.

The researchers also estimated the likelihood that the signals originate from an object behind JuMBO 24 and found it to be exceedingly slim, at just 1 in 10,000. And, in case you were wondering, the signals probably don't originate from aliens.  "The fact that both components emit at similar levels favors a natural mechanism," Rodríguez said.

With the research at an impasse, the team is applying to the NRAO's Very Large Array in New Mexico to collect data from free-floating planets. Until then, the radio signals will remain a mystery.

#🇲🇽 #STEM #Luis Rodríguez #mexican scientists #astronomy #science #Institute of Radio Astronomy and Astrophysics #National Autonomous University of Mexico #James Webb Space Telescope #JWST #radio signals #planets #orion nebula #Jupiter-mass binary objects #JuMBOs #brown dwarfs #jupiter #JuMBO 24 #The Astrophysical Journal Letters #pulsars #mexican #latino #hispanic

[agnesdelmotte]

#joy division #pulsars

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Clock-like precision of pulsars opens new window for studying gravitational waves A team of European astronomers, along with Indian and Japanese colleagues, has reported evidence that strongly suggests the detection of ultra-low-frequency gravitational waves. Such waves, which have not previously been observed, probably originate from pairs of supermassive black holes at the center of merging galaxies. This discovery is the result of more than 25 years of observations with the most sensitive radio telescopes in Europe and India, including the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope (WSRT) in the Netherlands. In doing so, they have opened a new window for studying gravitational waves, which can give astronomers a glimpse into the universe's best-kept secrets. The team's research has been published in a series of articles in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. The scientists on the team collaborate within the European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA) and the Indian Pulsar Timing Array (InPTA). In EPTA, astronomers and theoretical physicists from more than ten institutions across Europe are using observations of very regular pulses from pulsars—highly magnetized rotating neutron stars—as a gravitational wave detector that is essentially the size of our Milky Way galaxy. From the Netherlands, astronomers from ASTRON and Radboud University are involved. It was also announced today that other teams from around the world have independently reported the same observations. Cosmological clocks The astronomically vast gravitational wave detector, which spans 25 specifically chosen pulsars scattered across the Milky Way, enables researchers to investigate gravitational waves at ultra-low frequencies with wavelengths of several light years. Such frequencies are impossible to observe with detectors such as LIGO and Virgo, which are limited to wavelengths of several kilometers. These ultra-low (nanohertz) frequencies provide the opportunity to observe unique sources and phenomena. Emma van der Wateren, Ph.D. student at the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy ASTRON and Radboud University, explains, "Pulsars are fantastically accurate cosmological clocks. We use the changes in the extreme regularity of the 'ticking' of the clocks to detect the subtle stretching and compression of spacetime caused by gravitational waves." The gravitational waves reported in the current study are probably a sum of signals from a very large number of supermassive black holes orbiting each other very slowly. The researchers believe that the results provide a new window for exploring the universe. Astronomer Gemma Janssen (ASTRON, RU) says, "These ultra-low-frequency gravitational waves contain information about the universe's best-kept secrets. We still know little about the population of double black holes with huge masses—from millions to billions of times the mass of the sun—which form when galaxies merge." Coordinated observations "It has been quite an undertaking," added Ben Stappers of the Jodrell Bank Center for Astrophysics in the U.K. "These results are based on decades of coordinated observations with the five largest European radio telescopes: the Effelsberg radio telescope in Germany, the Lovell telescope at Jodrell Bank Observatory in the United Kingdom (UK), the Nançay radio telescope in France, the Sardinia radio telescope in Italy and the Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope in the Netherlands." To achieve additional sensitivity, the astronomers at the European telescopes made exactly simultaneous observations of the selected pulsars. They did this once per month, in addition to their regular observations. Observations from the EPTA were supplemented with data from the InPTA, resulting in an exceptionally sensitive dataset. Westerbork The Dutch contribution to the EPTA data is a dataset of pulsar observations made monthly for 16 years with the Westerbork telescope. Cees Bassa, scientist at ASTRON, explains, "The Westerbork dataset is unique because the signals were measured not only at lower frequencies, but also at the higher frequencies that are usually recorded. This dual-frequency approach enabled us to account for the effect of space weather, thus making the entire dataset more sensitive to gravitational wave signals." Besides observing pulsars, astronomers in the Netherlands were also behind the development of a new generation of pulsar instruments. These instruments are now used for pulsar observations at all European radio telescopes. Other teams The EPTA results were presented simultaneously with similar results from other teams spread around the world: the Australian, Chinese and North American Pulsar Timing Array collaborations (PPTA, CPTA and NANOGrav, respectively). "The independently obtained results are in agreement with each other, which makes us even more confident that this incipient signal is really coming from gravitational waves," Janssen said. Scientists from the main Pulsar Timing Arrays combine their datasets to generate the International Pulsar Timing Array. The aim is to expand and merge the PTA datasets, eventually creating a joint dataset. This will ultimately lead to new insights into the evolution of supermassive black holes and the enormous galaxies in which they formed. IMAGE....Gravitational waves are ripples in space-time, represented by the green grid, produced by accelerating bodies such as interacting supermassive black holes. These waves affect the time it takes for radio signals from pulsars to arrive at Earth. Credit: David Champion/NASA, JPL

#space #science #Astronomy #physics #news #pulsars

[paneutrois]

I just noticed this in the title of Grimes ft. Janelle Monae 2017 Venus Fly video.

Gagged.

#grimes #janelle monae #venus fly #pulsars #sagan

[tenth-sentence]

As well as instructions on how to play back the images and sounds at precisely 16 2/3 revolutions per minute for the audio, and how to build a record player, it also contains a map so that any extraterrestrial civilisation will be able to trace the record back to our planet.

"Human Universe" - Professor Brian Cox and Andrew Cohen

#book quote #human universe #brian cox #andrew cohen #nonfiction #golden disk #golden disc #voyager 1 #voyager 2 #instructions #record player #audio #video #extraterrestrial civilization #map #pulsars #hydrogen

[netmassimo]

A series of articles published or being published in the journals "Astronomy and Astrophysics" and "The Astrophysical Journal Letters" reports various aspects of the detection of very low-frequency gravitational waves. Researchers from the European Pulsar Timing Array (EPTA), the Indian Pulsar Timing Array (InPta), the Parkes Pulsar Timing Array (PPTA), the Chinese Pulsar Timing Array (CPTA), and the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NanoGrav) analyzed data collected over the course of more than 25 years using groups of pulsars to obtain a kind of detector of gravitational waves at the galactic level. This was possible by exploiting the extreme regularity of the signals emitted by pulsars to detect variations of less than a millionth of a second and their correlations to identify gravitational waves. This technique expands the gravitational-wave astronomy opened up by the LIGO and Virgo detectors since the announcement of the first detection in February 2016.

#astronomy #cosmology #gravitational waves #pulsars

[teachersource]

Joseph Hooton Taylor Jr. was born on March 29, 1941. An American astrophysicist and Nobel Prize laureate in Physics for his discovery with Russell Alan Hulse of a "new type of pulsar, a discovery that has opened up new possibilities for the study of gravitation." In 1974, Hulse and Taylor discovered the first pulsar in a binary system, named PSR B1913+16 after its position in the sky, during a survey for pulsars at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico.

#joseph hooton taylor jr. #astrophysics #astrophysicists #astronomy #pulsars #gravitation #binary systems #nobel prize #nobel prize winners #science #science history #science birthdays #on this day #on this day in science history

[mothman-clarice]

Ok so this is completely different from what I normally do but I'm bored so here it is.

Today I learned I might have a phobia of pulsars???

So I'm gonna rate the radio signal audio of pulsars based on how scared they make me feel

Using this video

The lower the rating the less scared I am and vice versa

Here we go.

The crab first sound - not too bad, pretty chill actually. 1/10

The crab second sound - OOOOOK ALREADY TESTING ME I SEE. 6/10

The crab third sound - not too bad, like the first one. 1/10

The crab 4th sound - kinda like the second but somehow more bearable? 4/10

B0540+23 - it's pretty ok, just sounds like a corrupt sound file from doom 2, idk why but it just does. 1/10

B1933+16 - eeeeaaAAAAAHHHH NOPE NOPE IT SOUNDS LIKE A HEARTBEAT NOPE NO THANKS THAT THING IS ALIVE AND IT IS ANGRY 8/10

B1937 first sound - EHHHHHHHH NO THANKS THAT SOUNDS TOO FAST 8/10 (on a side note it sounds like a pc trying to run rtx minecraft shaders on a potato graphics card)

B1937 2nd sound - SOMEHOW WORSE THAN THE FIRST????? 8.5/10

B2020 (this has 3 sounds so I'll make this rating cover all of them) - IT SOUNDS LIKE IM DEEP UNDERWATER AND I CAN HEAR THE PULSE OF A HUNGRY LEVIATHANS HEARTBEAT AS ITS TRYING TO EAT ME NO FUCKING THANKS 9/10

Xte1810 - he sounds pretty quiet for a magnetar. Damn I feel kinda bad for my mans, bro is too damn shy. 1/10

Punta Salinas radar - kinda sounds like the satellite they were using to track this had some dirt in it or some shit lol. 2/10

Vela - AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA/10

Psr b0329 - again it sounds like a GOD DAMN HEARTBEAT but its slower so I feel slightly less spooked 4/10

Psr j0437 - AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA /10

0950 - reminds me of a gigarcounter or however the fuck you spell it. 3/10

Cp0834 - feels... dead. Like an sos broadcast that was started by someone who's now long gone. Idk why so specific but oh well, pretty fuckin creepy. 6/10

Ok that's all the sounds in the vibeo

Thank you for coming to my...

I dont even know what this is

#off topic #pulsars #outer space #pulsar #stars #astronomy #shitpost #Youtube

[merelygifted]

Dead stars in Milky Way's companion galaxy cause gamma-ray cocoon | Space

The Fermi bubbles are massive structures extending from the Milky Way, reaching 50,000 light-years in length.

Mysterious ultrabright gamma-ray emissions in the giant bubbles blown out by our galaxy may finally have an explanation.

Researchers used data from the Gaia and Fermi space telescopes to search through the Fermi bubbles, a pair of colossal hourglass-shaped bubbles that extend from the poles of the Milky Way and span 50,000 light-years, to trace the source of the very bright gamma-ray emission spots.

They discovered that one of the brightest of these spots, dubbed the "Fermi cocoon," located in the southern bubble, was caused by emissions from rapidly spinning dead stars called pulsars in the Milky Way's satellite galaxy Sagittarius. The finding could shed light on how these collapsed dead stars act as cosmic particle accelerators, blasting out high-energy particles that go on to cause gamma-ray emissions.  ...

#Astronomy #Astrophysics #Fermi Bubbles #Pulsars #WHOA

[ianmcpherson]

WAVES THROUGH TIME (100 cm x 120 cm, Acrylic on canvas.) My painting depicts Professor Jocelyn Bell Burnell, originally from Co. Armagh, who discovered pulsars in 1967. In the background is a statue of Lord Kelvin who was born in Belfast, became Professor of Natural Philosophy at Glasgow University, and is famous for his work on thermodynamics and the first transatlantic telegraph cable. The visible bandwidth of the electro-magnetic spectrum, in a "beam" suggested by the perspective of Kelvin's plinth, symbolises the role of radio waves in the work of both scientists, uniting them across time: the robed, patriarchal Victorian and the brilliant young woman of the swinging 1960s. Also shown is the constellation of Vulpecula ("the little fox") in which Bell discovered her pulsar, a rotating neutron star emitting bursts of electromagnetic radiation over interstellar time and space. This painting reflects my interest in local history, science and nature. #science #astronomy #astrophysics #thermodynamics #glasgow #belfast #lurgan #pulsars #jocelynbellburnell #lordkelvin https://www.instagram.com/p/ChbxyaID4nP/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

#science #astronomy #astrophysics #thermodynamics #glasgow #belfast #lurgan #pulsars #jocelynbellburnell #lordkelvin

[spacenutspod]

The Space News Podcast. SpaceTime Series 26 Episode 145 *Solar activity likely to peak next year. A new study claims the Sun will reach the peak of its eleven year solar Cycle next year. The current Solar cycle -- 25 began in December 2019 with a minimum smoothed sunspot number of 1.8. NASA’s Fermi Mission nets 300 gamma-ray pulsars … and counting A new catalogue shows that NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has discovered 294 gamma-ray-emitting pulsars, while another 34 suspects await confirmation. *A day that changed astronomy for ever Back on the 17th of August 2017 astronomers were for the first time ever able to measure the violent death spiral of a pair of neutron stars using both conventional electromagnetic telescopes and the relatively new field of gravitational wave laser interferometry. *The Science Report Ozone levels above Antarctica may not be recovering after all. Inhaling air pollution while sitting in traffic associated with an increase in blood pressure. Study claims city dwelling bees tend to have bigger brains than their country cousins. Skeptic's guide to the 2023 Bent Spoon Awards This week’s guests include: Professor Matthew Bailes from OzGrav the ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery Mars Odyssey deputy project scientist Laura Kerber from JPL And our regular guests: Alex Zaharov-Reutt from techadvice.life Tim Mendham from Australian Skeptics Jonathan Nally from Sky and Telescope Magazine isten to SpaceTime on your favorite podcast app with our universal listen link: https://spacetimewithstuartgary.com/listen and access show links via https://linktr.ee/biteszHQ Additionally, listeners can support the podcast and gain access to bonus content by becoming a SpaceTime crew member through www.bitesz.supercast.com or through premium versions on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Details on our website at https://spacetimewithstuartgary.com For more SpaceTime and show links: https://linktr.ee/biteszHQ For more podcasts visit our HQ at https://bitesz.com

#activity #antartica #astronomy #fermi #gamma-ray #history #mission #nasa #ozone #podcast #pulsars #solar #space #spacetime #starstuff

[phonemantra-blog]

Mysterious flares that periodically hit Earth may be the result of neutron star seismology Originally discovered in 2007, fast radio bursts (FRBs) are invisible to the human eye but can be detected by radio telescopes. They come from beyond our galaxy, traveling billions of light years, and are so powerful that the FRB signal can outshine the entire galaxy they come from. Despite this power (and the fact that up to 10,000 FRBs can occur over Earth each day), their source remains unknown, partly because the duration of such flashes is only one-thousandth of a second. FRBs fall into two main categories. Some repeat and others do not, and these make up the vast majority of radio bursts. Moreover, the energy distribution of repeating FRBs is similar to the energy distribution observed during earthquakes. New research from the University of Tokyo has strengthened the case for this similarity, suggesting that radio bursts may be caused by the seismology of neutron stars. [caption id="attachment_68824" align="aligncenter" width="780"] Neutron stars[/caption] Neutron stars have an extreme nature similar to FRBs. They are born when massive stars exhaust their supply of fuel for nuclear reactions and shed their outer layers in supernova explosions. This leaves a stellar core with a mass of one to two solar masses and a diameter of only 20 kilometers. This rapid compression has three main consequences. First, it creates a substance so dense that one sugar cube from it would weigh about 1 billion tons. Secondly, some stellar remains can rotate at speeds of up to 700 revolutions per second. Finally, the star's super-strong magnetic fields "compress", increasing its strength and creating some of the most powerful magnetic fields known in the Universe. Neutron stars may be sources of mysterious radio bursts Young neutron stars with exceptionally strong magnetic fields are called magnetars and have previously been associated with FRB radiation. The theory of asteroseismology suggests that the surface of a neutron star may be subject to disturbances similar to earthquakes on Earth. One potential reason for this phenomenon could be the stress that occurs when their exceptionally strong magnetic fields twist. “Theoretically, the surface of a magnetar could experience disturbances that release energy similar to earthquakes on Earth. Recent observations have resulted in a collection of thousands of FRBs, and we took the opportunity to compare large-scale FRB statistics with data from earthquakes and solar flares to explore possible similarities,” said one of the team members, Tomonori Totani from the University of Tokyo. The team looked at the timing and energy of radiation from about 7,000 repeating radio bursts, using the same method used to analyze the time-energy correlation of earthquakes and solar flares. The results showed a significant correlation between FRBs and earthquakes, but not between FRBs and solar flares. The team found four main similarities between FRBs and earthquakes. First, the probability of occurrence for an individual FRB and an earthquake is between 10% and 50%. Secondly, their frequency decreases with time, according to a power function of time. Finally, their speed always remains constant, even if the average number of FRBs changes significantly. At the same time, no correlation was found between the energy of the main ejection in both events and the shaking of the star’s surface. This indicates that when neutron stars experience shocks and disturbances on their surfaces, they release enormous amounts of energy, which astrophysicists observe in the form of FRBs. To fully confirm this, the team will continue to analyze new FRB data as it becomes available. “The interior of a neutron star is the densest place in the Universe, comparable to the interior of an atomic nucleus. Neutron star seismology has opened up new insights into very high-density matter and the fundamental laws of nuclear physics,” Totani said.

#astronomy #astrophysics #celestial_bodies #compact_stars #cosmic_objects #extreme_gravity #high_density_matter #neutron_star_formation #neutron_star_observations. #neutron_star_properties #neutron_star_research #Neutron_stars #pulsars #stellar_evolution #stellar_remnants #supernova_remnants