Black Widow Pulsar--At the Top of Freaky Phenomena in the Universe? (Holiday Weekend Feature)

 

         

The pulsar, a.k.a. the "Black Widow," is moving through the galaxy at a speed of almost a million kilometers per hour. A bow shock wave due to this motion is visible to optical telescopes, shown in this image as the greenish crescent shape. The pressure behind the bow shock creates a second shock wave that sweeps the cloud of high-energy particles back from the pulsar to form the cocoon.

This composite X-ray (red/white) and optical (green/blue) image reveals an elongated cloud, or cocoon, of high-energy particles flowing behind the rapidly rotating pulsar, B1957+20 (white point-like source).

The pulsar is emitting intense high-energy radiation that appears to be destroying a companion star through evaporation. It is one of a class of extremely rapid rotating neutron stars called millisecond pulsars. Calculations suggest that the "black widow" will evaporate away its companion in about a billion years.

These objects are thought to be very old neutron stars that have been spun up to rapid rotation rates with millisecond periods by pulling material off their companions. The advanced age, very rapid rotation rate, and relatively low magnetic field of millisecond pulsars put them in a separate class from young pulsars, such as the Crab Nebula.

Pulsars rank at or near the top of freaky phenomena found in our Universe. In the early 1930s, California Institute of Technology astrophysicist, Fred Zwicky, an immigrant from Bulgaria, focused his attention on a question that had long troubled astronomers: the appearance of random, unexplained points of light, new stars.

It occurred to Zwicky that if a star collapsed to the sort of density found in the core of atoms, the result would be an unimaginably compacted core: atoms would be crushed together with their electrons squeezed into the nucleus, forming neutrons and a neutron star, with a core so dense that a single spoonful would weigh 200 billion pounds. But there's more, Zwicky concluded: with the collapse of the star there would be huge amounts of leftover energy that would result in a massive explosion, the biggest in the known universe that we called today supernovas.

Most neutron stars house incredibly large magnetic fields. If they are spinning rapidly they make fabulous clocks, cosmic radio beacons we call pulsars. Pulsars can keep time to an accuracy better that one microsecond per year. Some pulsars generate more than 1000 pulses per second, which means, as Lawrence Krauss wrote in The Physics of Star Trek, that an object with the mass of the Sun packed into an object 10 to 20 kilometers across is rotating over 1000 times per second, or more that half the speed of light!

The Daily Galaxy via chandra.harvard.edu

Image Credit: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss

Comments

[PP]

"a million kilometers per hour". Finally measurement units that are not from the time of Charlemagne.

[Kilodouche]

Well, technically, hours and seconds go back to Babylonian base-60 time units. So while I understand your need to assert the dominance of your preferred system of measurement, calling a unit into question simply because it is old is probably not the best tactic.

[smartypants]

This picture is just awesome!! But it leaves a question or 2. Since we can see the turbulence down the side and wayyyy behind, yet clearly see B1957+20, are the particles surrounding it almost 2d in depth? We can see stars behind the dust (or whatever it is) and its likely some are in front but it looks like we can see clearly through the area where B1957+20 is. Is this the case or are we seeing into the (dustcloud?) like its opened up? Also, there are many lines that look like pearls on a necklace coming off the cloud. Was the picture a multi exposure? Actually the entire top is like this but the lines seem to draw my interest the most. Last, the dust looks like it might be getting pulled along and maybe into the heliosphere at the farthest rear. OK, that wasnt a question unless I ask is this possible? Really last this time, does the bottom look blurred compared to the top??

[Homeira]

The speed of light is 300000. kilometres per hour . By " a speed of almost a million kilometers per hour " you are claiming that the Galaxy's speed is much much faster than light speed ?!!! Are you kidding ? :D At such a speed , Hour will be meaningless Sir !

[MMMM]

HaHa Dear Homeira speed of light is 300000 Kms per second not per hour....

[Gunter]

just a simple clarification:
speed of light= 299 789 M/S
speed of the pulsar is 1 Million Km/Hour
:by a simple conversion the speed of pulsar is nearly 277 000 M/S
so it does'nt exceed the speed of light :)

[BigJov]

277000 meters/s = 277 kilometers /s X 60 ( as there is 60 seconds in a minute ) = 16620 k/ minute X 60 ( as there is 60 minutes in an hour ) = 997200 k/ h which is around 1 million kilometers per hour . Its the same they just made a round number ...

[Karen]

when is this pulsar predicted to be closest to Earth?

[PJ]

The universe is cool.

[Ernst Schneider]

This article suggests that this image is taken with an optical telescope when in fact it's an artist's impression: http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2003/b1957/more.html