by APOD Robot » Sat Mar 05, 2011 5:08 am
Cooling Neutron Star
Explanation: Supernova remnant Cassiopeia A (Cass A) is a
comfortable 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/optical image, while the bright source near the center is a
neutron star (
inset illustration) 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, so rapidly that researchers suspect a large part of the neutron star's core is forming a frictionless
neutron superfluid. The Chandra results represent the first observational evidence for this
bizarre state of matter.
[/b]
[url=http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap110305.html][img]http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/calendar/S_110305.jpg[/img] [size=150]Cooling Neutron Star[/size][/url]
[b] Explanation: [/b] [url=http://chandra.harvard.edu/xray_sources/supernovas.html]Supernova remnant[/url] Cassiopeia A (Cass A) is a [url=http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2003/0108supernova.html]comfortable[/url] 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 [url=http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap040826.html]X-ray[/url]/optical image, while the bright source near the center is a [url=http://www.astro.umd.edu/~miller/nstar.html]neutron star[/url] ([url=http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2011/casa/more.html#casa1]inset illustration[/url]) 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 [url=http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2011/casa/]the neutron star is cooling rapidly[/url], so rapidly that researchers suspect a large part of the neutron star's core is forming a frictionless [url=http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2011/casa/more.html#casa3]neutron superfluid[/url]. The Chandra results represent the first observational evidence for this [url=http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/02/110223151943.htm]bizarre state[/url] of matter.
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