“We have a real secret in our hands”

If you buy links to our articles, the future and its syndicate partners can earn a commission.

With the most advanced radio telescopes in the world, astronomers have discovered a rotating dead star that is so rare, strange and unique that they described it as a “cosmic unicorn”. The unique properties of this object, Chime J1634+44, require our current understanding of rotating dead stars and their environments.

Chime J1634+44, also known as ILT J163430+445010 (J1634+44), is part of a class of objects that are referred to as a long -term radio transient (LPTS). LPTS are a newly found and mysterious type of heavenly body that radiates radio waves that are repeated on time scales from minutes to hours. This is significantly longer than the emission of standard pulse stars or quickly rotating neutron star remains, the rays of the radiation over the cosmos when turning.

But as strange as all LPTs are, Chime J1634+44 is still noticeable. It is not only the brightest LPT that has ever been seen, but it is also the polarized. In addition, his radiation impulses seem to be strongly choreographed. And what really strikes Chime J1634+44 is the fact that it is the only LPT astronomers that have ever seen the spin is accelerated.

“You could call Chime J1634+44 yourself as” unicorn “. The Bursts seem to repeat either 14 minutes or 841 seconds – but there is a significant secondary period of 4206 seconds or 70 minutes, which is exactly five times longer,” said Fengqiu Adam Dong, a Jansky Fellow at GREE Observation (GBO) Expression. “We think both are real, and this is probably a system with something that circles a neutron star.”

The team discovered the unusual features of Chime J1634+44 using ground-based instruments such as the Green Bank Telescope, the very large array (VLA), the Canadian hydrogen intensity intensity mapping experiment (Chime) Fast Radio Burst and Pulsar Project, the NASA-operated observation and the Swift observation observation by Neil Gehrels (Swift). In fact, the property was discovered by a separate team of astronomers at Astron, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy, using the LOFOR radiotelescope.

While the team cited by Dong believes that an outstanding remnant in the heart of Chime J1634+44 is a neutron star, the astron team, which was led by astronomers Sanne Bloot, refers to J1634+44 and think it is a white dwarf. However, what both teams agree is how strange this LPT is.

This unicorn accelerates by eating a star

Both white dwarfs and neutron stars are dead stars that have generated when stars from different masses out of fuel supply that they need for nuclear fusion in their nuclei. As soon as this fuel is over, the stars can no longer support their own immense gravities.

Neutron stars are outstanding remains that form when massive stars form at least the eight times as high as that of the sun, the end of their lives. Smaller stars in the mass of the sun leave a slightly less extreme star residue, which is referred to as “white dwarf”.

Although most of the mass of these dying massive stars are shed into Supernova explosions, the star kernels keep a mass between one and twice as high as that of the sun. This is put down up to a width of about 20 kilometers of about 12 miles, which creates a matter that is so dense that a teaspoon of neutron star is exploited and brought to earth that weighs 10 million tons (the stacking of 85,000 blue whales on a teaspoon).

This collapse has another extreme consequence. The dying star retains its angle impulse, which means that when it collapses, its radius is quickly reduced when reducing it quickly. Although the collapse of the white dwarfs is less extreme, this also leads to an increase in the speed of the speed due to the preservation of the angle impulse.

An earth -based example of this is an ice skat who pulls in her arms to increase the speed of your spins.

What this means is that some young neutron stars can shoot as quickly as 700 times every second. With the age of the neutron stars and the white dwarfs, however, you should slow down if you lose energy. Therefore, the fact that it accelerates its spin, regardless of which Chime J1634+44 is, is very strange.

There is an option how neutron stars or white dwarfs increase their speed speed or “turn” after their birth. It depends on whether you have a tight accompanying star.

Therefore, the team of the new study suspects that Chime J1634+44 actually consists of two star objects, which circles in a close binary format. The Astron team suggests that this companion is either another outstanding rest (like a white dwarf or a neutron star) or a brown dwarf “failed star”.

When these bodies fluctuate around each other, they would say waves in space -time as gravitational waves. This leads away from the angle impulse and causes the two star bodies to come closer together. This would lead to the binary duration appears as if it is a shortening. This type of orbital tightening was previously observed by astronomers in white dwarf binary files.

However, Chime J1634+44 becomes strange.

The radio bursts are 100% circularly polarized. This means that the electromagnetic waves that escape J1634+44 in a circle (such as a corkscrew) while they spread out turn into a circle.

The electromagnetic radiation that escapes the chime escaped J1634+44 turns in a perfect spiral if they move away from its source. It is not only extremely rare, it is also something that has never been seen when radiation from neutron stars or white dwarfs.

This implies that the radio wave explosions of Chime J1634+44 are generated in a way that is unique for this dead star.

Astronomers have a secret in their hands with this dead star

What is also strange about these impulses is the fact that you arrive in pairs, but only if the dead star in the Chime J1634+44 Binary has shot several times without spending a burst.

“The time between paws seems to follow a choreographed pattern,” said team member and Astron astronomer Harish Vedantham in a statement. “We believe that the pattern contains important information about how the companion triggers the white dwarf to emit radio waves.

“The continued surveillance should help us decode this behavior, but at the moment we have a real puzzle in our hands.”

Related stories:

– New type of Pulsar may explain how mysterious “black widow” systems develop

– Listen ‘black widow’ Pulsars song while it destroys the companion

-Hasa X -ray room

The examinations carried out by these astronomers not only reveal more about neutron stars, the most extreme outstanding objects in the universe, but also indicate an exciting new phase for radio astronomy.

“The discovery of Chime J1634+44 is expanding the well -known population of LPTS and challenges existing models of neutron stars and white dwarfs, which indicates that there may be many more objects that are waiting for discoveries,” Dong concluded.

The research of both teams was published on Thursday (July 17) in the magazine Astronomy & Astrophysics.