Astronomy Picture of the Day
Posted By admin On March 5, 2011 @ 10:34 am In Photo Essays | Comments Disabled
[1]
Cooling Neutron Star
Credit: X-ray: NASA [2] / CXC [3] / UNAM / Ioffe / D.Page [4], P.Shternin et al [5]; Optical: NASA / STScI [6];
Illustration: NASA/CXC [3]/M.Weiss)
Explanation: Supernova remnant [7] Cassiopeia A (Cass A) is a comfortable [8] 11,000 light-years away. Light from the Cass A supernova, the death explosion of a massive star, first reached Earth just 330 years ago. The expanding debris cloud spans about 15 light-years in this composite X-ray [9]/optical image, while the bright source near the center is a neutron star [10] (inset illustration [11]) the incredibly dense, collapsed remains of the stellar core. Still hot enough to emit X-rays, Cass A’s neutron star is cooling. In fact, 10 years of observations with the orbiting Chandra X-ray observatory find that the neutron star is cooling rapidly [12], so rapidly that researchers suspect a large part of the neutron star’s core is forming a frictionless neutron superfluid [13]. The Chandra results represent the first observational evidence for this bizarre state [14] of matter.
Visit the NASA/JPL website to view more Astronomy Pictures of the Day [15]
Article printed from Recorder Online: http://www.berthoudrecorder.com
URL to article: http://www.berthoudrecorder.com/2011/03/05/astronomy-picture-of-the-day-25/
URLs in this post:
[1] Image: http://www.berthoudrecorder.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/casa_main.jpg
[2] NASA: http://www.nasa.gov/
[3] CXC: http://chandra.harvard.edu/
[4] D.Page: http://lanl.arxiv.org/abs/1011.6142
[5] P.Shternin et al: http://lanl.arxiv.org/abs/1012.0045
[6] STScI: http://www.stsci.edu/
[7] Supernova remnant: http://chandra.harvard.edu/xray_sources/supernovas.html
[8] comfortable: http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2003/0108supernova.html
[9] X-ray: http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap040826.html
[10] neutron star: http://www.astro.umd.edu/~miller/nstar.html
[11] inset illustration: http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2011/casa/more.html#casa1
[12] the neutron star is cooling rapidly: http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2011/casa/
[13] neutron superfluid: http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2011/casa/more.html#casa3
[14] bizarre state: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110223151943.htm
[15] Astronomy Pictures of the Day: http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/
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