--------- #1327 - The Fastest Spinning Star
- Attachment: Image of New Supernova.
- Neutron Stars can spin! Our own star, the Sun, spins. Rather slowly, one rotation takes 25 days. This is the story about PSR J17482446 whose name will be referred to as Neutron Star henceforth. This Neutron Star is located in a Globular Cluster of stars in the Constellation Sagittarius the Archer ( the “teapot” in the southern night sky). It is 18,000 lightyears away. This star is spinning at 716 rotations per second. Instead of 25 days to complete one rotation this star does it in 1.4 milliseconds.
- This Neutron Star is part of a binary system. Its companion is a Red Giant star that is 1/7 the mass of our Sun. The two stars orbit each other every 26 hours.
- The Neutron Star is spinning so fast it would fly apart except for the fact that its surface is solid and harder than a diamond. The density of the star is 50 trillion times heavier than the density of solid lead. Its magnetic field is a trillion times more intense than that of our Sun.
- A Neutron Star is a collapsed star that no longer has any more fusion fuel to burn. It remains a hot cinder. In this case a hot spinning cinder that can not offer any radiation or resistance to the gravity that is compressing it. For a normal collapsing star the size- of- our- Sun , gravity would compress it to the size of our Earth before a electron resistance could stop it. At this point compression would stop because the electron’s pressure to refuse to collapse any further would hold up the gravity. The star this size would remain a White Dwarf Star.
- However, if the size of the star was 40% larger than our Sun ( >1.4 Solar Mass), then the electron’s pressure would break down. The electrons would collapse into the protons in the nucleus and become neutrons. When this happens the star collapses from Earth-size to a ball 20 miles in diameter. A Neutron Star is 20 miles in diameter and still weighing more than the Sun.
- When this collapse is happening the spinning star is speeding up its rate of rotation. Just like an ice skater pulling in her outstretched arms speeds up her rate of spin. When a star’s diameter shrinks it spin rate goes up to maintain the equivalent Angular Momentum. This is the law of the Conversation of Energy, or , in this case the Conservation of Angular Momentum. This particular Neutron Star is spinning at 716 revolutions per second.
- A kitchen blender on its highest speed is rotating a hundred revolutions per second. This 20 mile diameter ball is rotating 716 revolutions per second. The equator on the ball is traveling at 43,000 miles per second. If the Earth were doing this instead of a day taking 24 hours we would have 2 days per second. How time flies.
- Not only would you be spinning this fast standing on the equator, the gravity is so intense that your whole body would be crushed to the size of a protoplasm. You would spread across the surface of the star like a film of oil only one atom thick.
- It life were not difficult enough under these conditions the star would be releasing quick bursts of energy with every rotation. Each flash of radiation occurs across a wide range of wavelengths. The flashes are so fast that we can not see them. The star looks like a continuous source of light. Our eyes can not separate flashes that are faster than 30 times per second, let alone 716 flashes per second.
- The spin rate was not detected until 2004 when radio signals were analyzed. This radio signal became a flash along our line of sight because the beam axis of the jets is slightly off center from the rotation axis of the star. This causes the beam to rotate like a lighthouse beacon. Radio signals could be analyzed to pull out the repetition rate of 716 times per second.
- For astronomy to date, this is the fastest spinning star in the Cosmos. It could not be crushed any denser without becoming a “Quark Star”. This phenomena is in theory only. Yet to be discovered. Theoretically, just as electrons give out and get crushed down to neutrons, the neutrons could give out and get crushed down to their fundamental particles the Quarks. An announcement will be made shortly, stay tuned.
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707-536-3272, Wednesday, November 16, 2011
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