A pulsar in the Milky Way is ready for its close-up.
Two teams of astronomers independently have gotten the first glimpses of the surface of a pulsar, a rapidly spinning neutron star. Newly created maps of that surface reveal a smattering of bright blemishes in the star’s southern hemisphere, hinting at the presence of complex magnetic fields.
These new data, along with precise measurements of the star’s mass and size, could help researchers zero in on how matter behaves under extreme pressure.
Neutron stars, the cores of massive stars left behind after a supernova explosion (SN: 9/25/18), pack roughly the mass of the sun into an orb not much wider than a major city. Researchers don’t really know what happens to matter when it’s squeezed that tightly. But “neutron stars themselves can give us hints and contribute to fundamental physics,” says Cole Miller, an astrophysicist at the University of Maryland in College Park and author of one of the studies, both of which appear in the Dec. 10 Astrophysical Journal Letters.