A high-velocity dead star created a nebula named after a small Australian marsupial.
Astronomers using ground-based radio telescopes have discovered a rapidly rotating new star, moving through space at millions of kilometers per hour and spinning 14 times per second, according to a study published on the preprint server arXiv. At the same time, this star has created a cloud of gas that is 46 times larger than the solar system, but this cloud is named after the tiny marsupial Potoroo, which lives in Australia, Space writes.
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Astronomers have discovered a new pulsar called PSR J1638–4713, located 33 thousand light-years away from us. This rapidly rotating neutron star produces a strong pulsar wind and forms a cloud of gas called a pulsar wind nebula.
Important
Pulsar PSR J1638-4713 spins so fast that it spins around 14 times per second. Scientists believe that this is a very young object, only 24 thousand years old. By comparison, our Sun is about 4.5 billion years old.
The gas cloud formed by the pulsar is 69 light-years wide and 46 times the size of the Solar System. Despite its enormous size, the nebula was named “Potoru” after a small marsupial that lived in Australia.
Pulsars are a type of neutron stars, the cores of dying massive stars. When such a star runs out of fuel to support thermonuclear fusion in its core, it shrinks to the size of a sphere about 20 km in diameter. The result was an object so dense and composed almost entirely of neutrons that a tablespoon of this substance on Earth would weigh about 1 billion tons. The remainder of the massive star’s material was blasted into space in a supernova explosion.
As a result, the neutron star, which had a very fast rotation and a strong magnetic field, began to release radiation currents with a certain periodicity. However, there was also a gas cloud around the pulsar created by the supernova explosion.
At the same time, the pulsar itself began to emit a pulsar wind of charged particles. When these particles collided with material scattered from the supernova explosion, a pulsar wind nebula was formed. The further pulsar wind particles fly from a dead star, the faster they lose energy.
Scientists say examining the light emitted from pulsar wind nebulae provides insight into what is happening around the pulsar and other types of neutron stars.
Scientists found that the gas cloud, called “Potoru”, resembles a comet shape, meaning it has a nucleus and a bright tail. Astronomers believe this is because the pulsar is moving at around 3.5 million km/h in front of its own creation, the Potoroo Nebula.
Therefore, the gas cloud takes a shape similar to the shape that water takes when a boat is floating at high speed.
As I already wrote FocusNASA showed a 14-year time-lapse of the Universe. The Fermi Space Telescope showed what the Universe and Milky Way look like in gamma rays.
Source: Focus
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