Astronomers discover a mysterious object in the Milky Way Galaxy
Astronomers have discovered a new and unknown object in the Milky Way Galaxy, heavier than the heaviest neutron stars known to scientists, but at the same time lighter than the lightest known black holes.
The team of scientists from a number of institutions, including the University of Manchester and the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Germany, found the object in orbit around an intensely rotating pulsar with a rotation period of milliseconds, 40,000 light-years away in a dense cluster of stars known as Globular star cluster (or globular star cluster).
Millisecond pulsars are a type of pulsar (a neutron star with pulsing radiation) that spin very quickly, hundreds of times per second.
Scientists say that this mysterious object is a pulsating star in binary form with a compact body in the mass gap between neutron stars and black holes.
According to scientists, this may be the first discovery of a radio pulsar, a black hole binary, a conjunction that could allow new tests of Einstein's general relativity and open the doors to the study of black holes.
“Any possibility of a companion nature is exciting,” said Ben Stubbers, professor of astrophysics at the University of Manchester. The pulsating black hole system will be an important target for testing theories of gravity, and the heavy neutron star will provide new insights into nuclear physics at very high densities.”
When a neutron star, the ultra-dense remnant of a dead star, gains too much mass, it will collapse. What they become next is the cause of much speculation, but it is believed that they could become black holes.
It is also believed that the total mass required to collapse a neutron star is 2.2 times the mass of the Sun.
The lightest black holes created by these stars are much larger, with a mass of about five times the mass of the Sun, leading to what is known as the “black hole mass gap.” The nature of the objects in this mass gap is unknown and difficult to study.
Scientists say the latest discovery could help scientists finally understand these things.
The object was discovered while observing a large group of stars known as NGC 1851 located in the Columba constellation, using the MeerKAT telescope.
Astronomers point out that the constellation is so crowded that stars can interact with each other, leading to disrupted orbits and, in extreme cases, collision.
They believe that a collision between two neutron stars may have created the massive object that now orbits the radio pulsar.
While the team can't say definitively whether they've discovered the most massive neutron star to date, the lightest black hole or even a new type of exotic star, they have discovered something that will help explore the properties of matter under the most extreme conditions in Earth. Universe.
The results were published in the journal Science.