Neutron Star: A Strange Life
Can you ever think of a sugar cube of matter weighing more than a hundred million tons? You might be thinking that what am I speaking about, but the fact is it’s true, yes you read it right, it’s true.
When the stars of about 8–10 times the mass of the Sun is in the last years of its life, the fusion in the core of it reaches up to Iron, and that’s where it leads to bizarre consequences. The core collapses under its own immense gravity. In lower-mass stars, this collapsing of the core is balanced by the electron degeneracy pressure i.e.; the electrons ardently resist being squeezed together. But in the case of higher mass stars (more than about 8 times the mass of the sun), even the degeneracy pressure fails to cease this colossal gravity and the collapse continues. During this collapse, the electrons, protons, and other subatomic particles are shattered together resulting in the formation of neutrons. Sometimes the gravity is too high that even the neutron degeneracy (the resistance of neutrons towards squeezing them together) fails to counterbalance it, and this happens with the stars with a mass more than about 8 times that of the sun. With the core of the progenitor star of mass about 1.4–2.8 times of the sun, the neutron degeneracy succeeds in balancing the further collapse, this happens so suddenly that a shockwave generates which blows up the star and blast out subatomic particles and the remnant is an example of a Neutron Star.
Neutrons star is a core of tightly packed neutrons with a few electrons and protons whizzing here and there (those who survived the smash) along with a highly compressed crust of normal matter. An atom is a mostly empty space (99.9999999999996%), and the matter in a Neutron Star is what when we fill this empty space all with the neutrons which leads to the immense high density of it. Neutron Star has much more bizarre properties like the density, I mean just look at the gravity, it is about a hundred billion times that on the surface of the Earth.
Since neutron stars began their existence as stars, they are found scattered throughout the galaxy in the same places where we find stars. And like stars, they can be found by themselves or in binary systems with a companion.
Many neutron stars don’t emit enough radiation thus are likely undetectable. However, they can be easily observed under certain conditions. A handful of neutron stars have been found sitting at the centers of supernova remnants quietly emitting X-rays. In binary systems, some neutron stars can be found accreting materials from their companions, emitting electromagnetic radiation powered by the gravitational energy of the accreting material. More often, though, neutron stars are found spinning wildly with extreme magnetic fields as pulsars or magnetars.
Pulsar is a highly magnetized, fast rotating neutron stars providing periodic signals of radiations. The beams of the pulsar are due to some inclination between the magnetic and rotation axis of the neutron star. Although the light from the beam is steady, due to their spin, pulsars appear to blink. the reason behind this blinking appears is that the beam sweeps through the Earth and swing back around again, To an astronomer on the ground, the light goes in and out of view, giving the impression that the pulsar is blinking. Most of the pulsars rotate once per second (“slow pulsars”), while more than 200 pulsars that rotate hundreds of times per second (“millisecond pulsars”) have been found. The fastest known millisecond pulsars can rotate more than 700 times per second.
One idea is that if you get the spin, temperature, and magnetic field of a neutron star into a perfect sweet spot, it sets off a dynamo mechanism that amplifies the magnetic field by a factor of a thousand. Magnetars are the neutron stars with about a thousand trillion times stronger magnetic field than the Earth. In a magnetar, with its huge magnetic field, movements in the crust cause the neutron star to release a vast amount of energy in the form of electromagnetic radiation. A magnetar called SGR 1806–20 had a burst which released energy more than the sun has emitted in the last 100,000 years.one-tenth of a second
“Magnetars represent a new way for a star to shine, which makes this a fascinating field,” said Dr. Vicky Kaspi.
Since evolution, the universe continues to amaze and perplex astronomers hiding the beauty inside.
