National Radio Astronomy Observatory | 2015 Aug 04
[img3="Artist's impression of material flowing from a companion star onto a neutron star. The material forms an accretion disk around the neutron star and produces a superfast jet of ejected material. The material closest to the neutron star is so hot that it glows in X-rays, while the jet is most prominent at radio wavelengths. A similar mechanism is at work with black holes. (Credit: Bill Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSF)"]https://public.nrao.edu/images/non-gall ... C_nrao.jpg[/img3][hr][/hr]Some neutron stars may rival black holes in their ability to accelerate powerful jets of material to nearly the speed of light, astronomers using the Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) have discovered.
"It's surprising, and it tells us that something we hadn't previously suspected must be going on in some systems that include a neutron star and a more-normal companion star," said Adam Deller, of ASTRON, the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy.
Black holes and neutron stars are respectively the densest and second most dense forms of matter known in the Universe. In binary systems where these extreme objects orbit with a more normal companion star, gas can flow from the companion to the compact object, producing spectacular displays when some of the material is blasted out in powerful jets at close to the speed of light
Previously, black holes were the undisputed kings of forming powerful jets. Even when only nibbling on a small amount of material, the radio emission that traces the jet outflow from the black hole was relatively bright. In comparison, neutron stars seemed to make relatively puny jets -- the radio emission from their jets was only bright enough to see when they were gobbling material from their companion at a very high rate. A neutron star sedately consuming material was therefore predicted to form only very weak jets, which would be too faint to observe. ...
Super Star Takes on Black Holes in Jet Contest
International Center for Radio Astronomy Research | 2015 Aug 04
Radio imaging observations of PSR J1023+0038 in an LMXB state - A. T. Deller et al
- arXiv.org > astro-ph > arXiv:1412.5155 > 16 Dec 2014 (v1), 28 Jul 2015 (v3)