NRAO: VLA Discovers Powerful Jet Coming from "Wrong" Kind of Star

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NRAO: VLA Discovers Powerful Jet Coming from "Wrong" Kind of Star

Post by bystander » Thu Sep 27, 2018 5:53 pm

VLA Discovers Powerful Jet Coming from "Wrong" Kind of Star
National Radio Astronomy Observatory | 2018 Sep 26
Astronomers using the National Science Foundation’s Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array (VLA) have discovered a fast-moving jet of material propelled outward from a type of neutron star previously thought incapable of launching such a jet. The discovery, the scientists said, requires them to fundamentally revise their ideas about how such jets originate.

Neutron stars are superdense objects, the remnants of massive stars that exploded as supernovas. When in binary pairs with “normal” stars, their powerful gravity can pull material away from their companions. That material forms a disk, called an accretion disk, rotating around the neutron star. Jets of material are propelled at nearly the speed of light, perpendicular to the disk.

“We’ve seen jets coming from all types of neutron stars that are pulling material from their companions, with a single exception. Never before have we seen a jet coming from a neutron star with a very strong magnetic field,” said Jakob van den Eijnden of the University of Amsterdam. “That led to a theory that strong magnetic fields prevent jets from forming,” he added.

The new discovery contradicts that theory. ...

Neutron Star Jets Shoot Down Theory
International Center for Radio Astronomy Research | 2018 Sep 26

Strongly Magnetic Neutron Star with Jets Disproves Theories
Netherlands Research School for Astronomy (NOVA) | 2018 Sep 26

An Evolving Jet from a Strongly-Magnetised Accreting X-ray Pulsar ~ Jakob van den Eijnden et al
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