Neutron star secrets revealed by ‘glitch’
A ‘glitch’ in the behaviour of the Vela pulsar has allowed researchers to glimpse beneath the surface of a neutron star — the densest objects in the known universe — for the first time.
A study published in the journal, Nature Astronomy details the findings of a team from Monash University, the ARC Centre of Excellence for Gravitational Wave Discovery (OzGrav), McGill University in Canada, and the University of Tasmania, who studied the Vela Pulsar, a neutron star in the southern sky — 1000 light-years from earth.
Neutron stars are the densest objects in the known universe, they are protected from collapsing into black holes by neutron degeneracy pressure, balancing out the inward gravitational pull. They spin rapidly and periodically.
The team took advantage of ‘glitch’ in the rotation of neutron stars — found in only 5% of the objects — which sees them periodically increase the speed of their rotation. This bump in speed — referred to as a ‘spin up’ — is caused by portions of the star’s interior moving outwards.
as such, it gives astronomers a brief glimpse of what lies inside these objects.
