When stars with a mass between 10 and 25 times that of the Sun go supernova , they entrust behind aneutron star : an target so dense that a teaspoonful of its stuff weighs as much as a mountain . Astronomers describe new measurement of HESS J1731 - 347 , a record - get out neutron star . With an estimate volume of just 0.77 metre our Sun , it could be the light - ever neutron adept . Well , mayhap – the team also paint a picture that it might be something else entirely .
“ Our pot estimate makes the CCO in HESS J1731 - 347 the lightest neutron wizard experience to date , and potentially a more alien object — that is , a ‘ strange star ’ candidate . We accent that while the first part of the statement above is a racy result , the 2nd is an intriguing possibility which is reproducible with our psychoanalysis , ” the generator indite in their novel paper .
They made the estimations using X - ray reflexion from the XMM - Newton lookout and precise distance measurements from Gaia . HESS J1731 - 347 is delineate as the fundamental compact aim ( CCO ) at the gist of a supernova remnant , the cloud of debris produce when a headliner explodes .
The explosive death of massive virtuoso create some extreme conditions . During the supernova , the core of the asterisk experience such high pressure that the protons and negatron in the atoms present merge to create neutron . Neutrons are electrically neutral ( as the name suggests ) so there is no electromagnetic repulsion . Despite weigh like the Sun , the neutron star is not much bigger than a city . At those incredible densities , quantum mechanically skillful effectstake appreciation , keeping the neutron stars from turn into pitch-black holes .
Physicists theorize that during the formation , the physics at gaming could go a footfall further .
Protons and neutrons are made of triplets of Up and Down quarks – that ’s the received conformation of regular matter . However , under extreme conditions , you’re able to obtain a quark - gluon plasma , where gluon are the particles that arbitrate the strong nuclear force and keep proton and neutrons together in atoms . Quark matteris a different case of phase of matter again under utmost but different conditions from the quark - gluon plasma .
In particular , a contour that appear stable in theoretical models is a foreign quark star . The strange quark cheese is a heavier version of the down quark . In this scenario , as the champion collapses , all this topic is converted into unusual quarks . More of observations of this and other similar objective might help us understand if these strange stars are in truth out there in the cosmos .
The inquiry is bring out inNature Astronomy .
