NASA/CXC/SAO (X-Ray); NASA/JPL-Caltech (Infrared)
Team of Chinese scientists has discovered an extremely rare pulsar that can help us understand the stellar evolution.
Star binary systems are pairs of stars held together by gravity, orbiting a center of common mass. More than half of all the stars of our galaxy are part of a binary system or multiple stars, which makes them surprisingly common.
Stars of a binary system can vary greatly in terms of mass, size and shine, and their interactions often shape their evolution in a dramatic way. In some cases, the severity of a star can drag material from your mate, leading to explosive events like the new or even supernovae.
The study of binary systems not only helps us understand the life cycle of the stars, but also helps us to better understand the behavior of matter under extreme conditions.
A team of astronomers from China discovered a rare In a binary system whose radiation impulses are occasionally blocked by your mate of a few hours. The team, led by Han Jinlin, an investigator of China’s national astronomical observatories, published the magazine Science.
The pulsars themselves are not especially rare, having been found almost 3500 in our galaxy alone. It is the dense remains of massive stars that exploded as supernoves at the end of your life. They issue electromagnetic radiation bundles from their magnetic poles and, as they run, these beams sweep the space. If one of these beams crosses the earth, We detect it as a regular boost of radio wavesx -rays or even gamma rays.
The discovery was made with the spherical opening radiotelescope of five hundred meters (Fast), also known as “China Sky Eye”, the largest unique dish radio in the world. Located in a natural parsical depression in the province of Guizhou, China, has a satellite antenna of 500 meters wide Built with more than 4,400 adjustable panels, allowing you to detect weak radio signals from deep space.
Fast began working formally in January 2020 and opened international researchers in March 2021. Its main scientific goals include the study of pulsars, rapid gusts, neutral hydrogen and the demand for extraterrestrial intelligence.
This newly discovered system, called PSR J1928+1815, is 455 light years away and gave scientists a rare glimpse of binary star processes. In particular, the process that leads to the formation of a neutral star or pulse in a binary pair. In these systems, the heaviest star ages faster and collapses in a neutrons star or a black hole.
However, the smallest star loses material to his dense companion, making them share a Common envelope of hydrogen gas. For a short time, and this is the case of PSR J1928+1815, the two stars orbit within the common envelope. Over the course of about 1,000 years, the neutral star cleans this envelope, Leaving behind a hot star that burns helium in orbit of the neutral star.
This discovery supports longtime theories about how binary stars exchange mass, shrink their orbits, and eject shared gas envelopes. The study of systems such as this helps us to understand stellar evolution, the behavior of neutral stars and the way these pairs eventually merge and produce gravitational waves.
With powerful telescopes like fast, astronomers expect to find more of these rare cosmic pairs and unveil more secrets in the universe.
