Something in outer space is breaking the law — the laws of physics, that’s.
Astronomers call these lawbreakers ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs), they usually exude about 10 million times more energy than the sun. This amount of energy breaks a physical law generally known as the Eddington limit, which determines how vivid something of a given size might be. If something breaks the Eddington limit, scientists expect it to blow itself up into pieces. Nonetheless, ULXs “usually exceed this limit by 100 to 500 times, leaving scientists puzzled,” in keeping with a NASA statement (opens in recent tab).
Latest observations published in The Astrophysical Journal (opens in recent tab) from NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR), which sees the universe in high-energy X-rays, confirmed that one particular ULX, called M82 X-2, is certainly too vivid. Prior theories suggested that the intense brightness might be some type of optical illusion, but this recent work shows that is not the case — this ULX is definitely defying the Eddington limit in some way.
Related: Latest map of the universe unveils a shocking X-ray view of the cosmos
Astronomers used to imagine ULXs might be black holes, but M82 X-2 is an object generally known as a neutron star. Neutron stars are the leftover, dead cores of stars just like the sun. A neutron star is so dense that the gravity on its surface is about 100 trillion times stronger than that of Earth. This intense gravity implies that any material pulled onto the dead star’s surface could have an explosive effect.
“A marshmallow dropped on the surface of a neutron star would hit it with the energy of a thousand hydrogen bombs,” in keeping with NASA (opens in recent tab).
The brand new study found that M82 X-2 consumes around 1.5 Earths’ value of fabric every year, siphoning it off of a neighboring star. When this amount of matter hits the neutron star’s surface, it’s enough to provide the off-the-charts brightness the astronomers observed.
The research team thinks that is evidence that something have to be happening with M82 X-2 that lets it bend the foundations and break the Eddington limit. Their current idea is that the extreme magnetic field of the neutron star changes the form of its atoms, allowing the star to stay together at the same time as it gets brighter and brighter.
“These observations allow us to see the consequences of those incredibly strong magnetic fields that we could never reproduce on Earth with current technology,” lead study creator Matteo Bachetti (opens in recent tab), an astrophysicist on the Cagliari Astronomical Observatory in Italy, said within the statement. “That is the fantastic thing about astronomy … we cannot really arrange experiments to get quick answers; we have now to attend for the universe to point out us its secrets.”
