Neutron Star Gobbles Gas, Burps X-rays

[Ann]

A neutron star orbiting a massive B0 star is intermittently fed blobs of gas from its massive companion. When a helping of gas hits the neutron star, the degenerate star responds by brightening 10,000-fold. Or at least it did on March 15, 2010, or at least that is when news of the event reached the Earth and the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton telescope.

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/communit ... 94154.html
http://www.astronomynow.com/news/n1106/30neutron/





Ann

[neufer]

• Neutron Star Gobbles Gas, Burps X-rays

A neutron star orbiting a massive BO star is intermittently fed blobs of gas from its massive companion.
When a helping of gas hits the neutron star, the degenerate star responds by brightening 10,000-fold.

• 

[Ann]

• Neutron Star Gobbles Gas, Burps X-rays

A neutron star orbiting a massive BO star is intermittently fed blobs of gas from its massive companion.
When a helping of gas hits the neutron star, the degenerate star responds by brightening 10,000-fold.

• 

Hmm, did I get that wrong? The neutron star is orbiting the massive B0 star - check. The neutron star, which is orbiting a massive B0 star, is intermittently fed blobs of gas - check.The gas hits the neutron star - check. The neutron star is a degenerate star - check? Or not? The neutron star, which is a degenerate star - check? - responds by brightening 10,000-fold.

Where did I go wrong?

Ann

[neufer]

• Neutron Star Gobbles Gas, Burps X-rays

A neutron star orbiting a massive BO star is intermittently fed blobs of gas from its massive companion.
When a helping of gas hits the neutron star, the degenerate star responds by brightening 10,000-fold.

• 

Hmm, did I get that wrong? The neutron star is orbiting the massive B0 star - check. The neutron star, which is orbiting a massive B0 star, is intermittently fed blobs of gas - check.The gas hits the neutron star - check. The neutron star is a degenerate star - check? Or not? The neutron star, which is a degenerate star - check? - responds by brightening 10,000-fold.

Where did I go wrong?

Ann

blobs of gas from a massive BO star (and is 'burps' a euphemism?)

[Ann]

Still don't get it.

Aren't B0 stars massive?

Jim Kaler writes about B0V star Tau Scorpii, also called Al Niyat:

Al Niyat's luminosity and temperature show it to have a mass of a dozen times that of the Sun and to be near the lower end of stars whose fates are to explode as supernovae.

Isn't that fairly massive? And Tau Scorpii is a main sequence star of luminosity class V.

Jim Kaler writes about Gamma Cas, a B0 star of luminosity class IV:

With a mass of around 15 times that of the Sun, the star will most likely someday explode as a supernova.

Isn't that fairly massive?

JIm Kaler says that famous star Mintaka of Orion's Belt has a main component of spectral class B0III. Kaler writes about this star and its O-type companion:

The bright star we call Mintaka (whose solo magnitude is 2.23) is ALSO double, and consists of a hot (30,000 Kelvin) class B, slightly evolved, giant star and a somewhat hotter class O star, each radiating near 90,000 times the solar luminosity (after correction for a bit of interstellar dust absorption), each having masses somewhat over 20 times the solar mass.

Isn't that fairly massive?

So I guess I still don't get it. But then, I sure am dense sometimes.

Ann

EDIT: Oh!! Click on the underlined B0, and you get B0 = Body Odor. So, the star burps body odor. OK. I get it.

Click to view full size image

Imagine a star doing this. Okay. And this star burps blobs of bad odor on the neutron star, which has a real fit in response. Oh.

[Beyond]

Yup, the BO belches gas at the neutron star and the neutron star burps out xrays. Sounds good to me.