neutron star

Observational evidence from a neutron star merger has revealed the production of rare heavy elements, including tellurium, advancing our understanding of the universe’s elemental origins. Credit: SciTechDaily.com Breakthrough discovery puts astronomers one step closer to solving the mystery of the origin of elements that are heavier than iron.An international team of astronomers — including Clemson University astrophysicist Dieter Hartmann — obtained observational evidence for the creation of rare heavy elements in the…

Researchers have confirmed the existence of a neutron star at the center of Supernova 1987A, using the James Webb Space Telescope. This discovery resolves a long-standing mystery and contributes significantly to our understanding of supernovae and their role in the cosmos. Credit: HST, JWST/NIRSpec, J. LarssonThe discovery of a neutron star in Supernova 1987A illuminates the life cycle of stars and the cosmic origins of essential elements.An international team of astronomers including UCL’s (University College London’s)…

For the first time, MIT physicists have captured direct images of “second sound,” the movement of heat sloshing back and forth within a superfluid. The results will expand scientists’ understanding of heat flow in superconductors and neutron stars. Credit: Jose-Luis Olivares, MITMIT’s visualization of second sound opens new paths for understanding heat’s wave-like behavior in superfluids and its implications for various states of matter, expanding scientists’ understanding of heat flow in superconductors and neutron…

By Ewan D. Barr, Arunima Dutta, and Benjamin Stappers February 3, 2024Researchers have identified an enigmatic cosmic system that might contain an object bridging the gap between neutron stars and black holes, challenging existing astrophysical classifications and deepening our insight into cosmic extremes. Credit: SciTechDaily.comAstronomers discover a celestial object that defies classification, possibly uncovering a new type of cosmic entity at the edge of known physics.Sometimes astronomers come across objects in the…

An artist’s impression of the system assuming that the massive companion star is a black hole. The brightest background star is its orbital companion, the radio pulsar PSR J0514-4002E. The two stars are separated by 8 million km and circle each other every 7 days. Credit: Daniëlle Futselaar (artsource.nl)Using the MeerKAT Telescope, astronomers found a mysterious object in the Milky Way’s black hole mass gap, challenging existing astronomical classifications and offering a unique opportunity to study the universe’s most…

A team of scientists found a compact object 40,000 light-years from Earth that is either a very massive neutron star or an itsy-bitsy black hole, but they’re not sure which.Remake this Sci-Fi Film with Peter Capaldi!The so-called mass gap object has a mass between 2.09 and 2.71 times that of our Sun. For a neutron star—the collapsed, superdense core of a star—that would be huge, perhaps even the largest yet known. But for a black hole—an even more compact object, so dense that not even light can escape it—it would be…

Groundbreaking observations by a Cornell-led team reveal repeated energetic flares from a stellar corpse following a star’s explosion, challenging existing theories about stellar deaths and highlighting the possible role of black holes or neutron stars in such rare, intense phenomena.A distant star’s explosive demise left behind an active stellar corpse, which is believed to be the source of multiple energetic flares detected over several months. This occurrence, a phenomenon astronomers had never seen before, was…

This artist’s impression shows how hot, brilliant and high-mass stars evolve. The more massive brighter star expands first, until the outer layers start to strongly feel the gravitational pull of the companion. The companion then starts to suck material from the primary star. When the primary has been stripped from its entire hydrogen-rich envelope it shrinks. Credit: Navid Marvi, courtesy of the Carnegie Institution for ScienceNew findings confirm existence of hot helium stars long-thought to be at the heart of…

While Interstellar popularised the idea of black holes, physicists and research labs continue to expand their research of such interstellar phenomena to further understand the origins of our universe. In December 2021, the US-based National Aeronautics Space Agency launched the imaging X-ray polarimetry explorer mission to explore the remnants of supernova explosions, the particle streams emitted by black holes and other cosmic events.  On 1 January,…

By U.S. Department of Energy January 1, 2024Representation of nuclear matter on the left and of quark matter on the right. The question mark alludes to the question of whether these liquids can be distinguished in a theoretically rigorous manner. Credit: Institute of Modern Physics and Srimoyee Sen, Iowa State UniversityMatter inside neutron stars can have different forms: a dense liquid of nucleons or a dense liquid of quarks.Recent studies reveal that in neutron stars, quark liquids are fundamentally different from…