Astronomers tend to have a slightly different sense of time than the rest of us. They regularly study events that happened millions or billions of years ago, and objects that have been around for just as long. That’s partly why the recently discovered neutron star known as Swift J1818.0-1607 is remarkable: A new study in the journal Astrophysical Journal Letters estimates…
Tag: neutron star
Dance of 3 stars confirms Einstein’s ‘most fortunate thought’
Researchers in Europe have now confirmed the universality of free fall – which Einstein called his most fortunate thought – with extremely high precision. To do it, they spent 8 years tracking a triple star system containing a millisecond pulsar. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/pulsar-psr-j03371715-einstein-universality-of-free-fall…
Einstein’s core idea about gravity just passed an extreme, whirling test in deep space
Once again, physicists have confirmed one of Albert Einstein’s core ideas about gravity and relativity — this time with the help of a neutron star flashing across space. Source: https://www.livescience.com/einstein-theory-passes-extreme-test-deep-space.html
Astronomers capture a pulsar ‘powering up’
A Monash-University-led collaboration has, for the first time, observed the full, 12-day process of material spiraling into a distant neutron star, triggering an X-ray outburst thousands of times brighter than our Sun. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-06-astronomers-capture-pulsar-powering.html…
Scientists puzzle over massive, never-before-seen star system in the Milky Way
Earlier this year, an international team of scientists announced the second detection of a gravitational-wave signal from the collision of two neutron stars. The event, called GW190425, is puzzling: The combined mass of the two neutron stars is greater than any other observed binary neutron star system. The combined mass is 3.4 times the mass of our sun. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-05-scientists-puzzle-massive-never-before-seen-star.html…
Scientists puzzle over massive star system
Earlier this year, an international team of scientists announced the second detection of a gravitational-wave signal from the collision of two neutron stars. The event, called GW190425, is puzzling: The combined mass of the two neutron stars is greater than any other observed binary neutron star system. The combined mass is 3.4 times the mass of our sun. Source: https://phys.org/news/2020-05-scientists-puzzle-massive-never-before-seen-star.html…
New closest-known black hole lies in a visible star system
Only 1,000 light-years away, the star system can be seen with the unaided eye. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/closest-black-hole-hr-6819-eso-telescopium…
A mystery solved? Fast Radio Burst detected within Milky Way
Fast Radio Bursts are very mysterious bursts of radio waves – perhaps just a thousandth of a second long – coming from all over the sky. This new discovery of one in our own galaxy is a stunner! Source: https://earthsky.org/space/fast-radio-burst-detected-within-milky-way…
What are gravitational waves?
First postulated by Albert Einstein in 1916 but not observed directly until September 2015, gravitational waves are ripples in spacetime. Source: https://earthsky.org/space/definition-what-are-gravitational-waves…
What are exoplanets?
Exoplanets are worlds orbiting distant stars. The history of our knowledge of exoplanets, the various types of exoplanets, how astronomers find them, and more, here. Source: https://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/what-are-exoplanets…