Let’s face it, it’s hard for rapidly-spinning, crushed cores of dead stars NOT to be weird. But we’re only beginning to understand how truly bizarre these objects — called neutron stars — are.
Neutron stars are the collapsed remains of massive stars that exploded as supernovae. In each explosion, the outer layers of the star are ejected into their surroundings. At the same time, the core collapses, smooshing more than the mass of our Sun into a sphere about as big as the island of Manhattan.
Our Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) telescope on the International Space Station is working to discover the nature of neutron stars by studying a specific type, called pulsars. Some recent results from NICER are showing that we might have to update how we think about pulsars!
Here are some things we think we know about neutron stars:
Pulsars get their name because they emit beams of light that we see as flashes. Those beams sweep in and out of our view as the star rotates, like the rays from a lighthouse.
Pulsars can spin ludicrously fast. The fastest known pulsar spins 43,000 times every minute. That’s as fast as blender blades! Our Sun is a bit of a slowpoke compared to that — it takes about a month to spin around once.
Pulsars also have magnetic fields, like the Earth and Sun. But like everything else with pulsars, theirs are super-strength. The magnetic field on a typical pulsar is billions to trillions of times stronger than Earth’s!
Near the magnetic poles, the pulsar’s powerful magnetic field rips charged particles from its surface. Some of these particles follow the magnetic field. They then return to strike the pulsar, heating the surface and causing some of the sweeping beams we see.
Think of the Earth’s magnetic field — there are two poles, the North Pole and the South Pole. That’s standard for a magnetic field.
On a pulsar, the spinning magnetic field attracts charged particles to the two poles. That means there should be two hot spots, one at the pulsar’s north magnetic pole and the other at its south magnetic pole.
This is where things start to get weird. Two groups mapped a pulsar, known as J0030, using NICER data. One group found that there were two hot spots, as we might have expected. The other group, though, found that their model worked a little better with three (3!) hot spots. Not two.
The particles that cause the hot spots follow the magnetic field lines to the surface. This means they are concentrated at each of the magnetic poles. We expect the magnetic field to appear nearly the same in any direction when viewed from one of the poles. Such symmetry would produce circular hot spots.
In mapping J0030, one group found that one of the hot spots was circular, as expected. But the second spot may be a crescent. The second team found its three spots worked best as ovals.
Think back to Earth’s magnetic field again. The two poles are on opposite sides of the Earth from each other. When astronomers first modeled pulsar magnetic fields, they made them similar to Earth’s. That is, the magnetic poles would lie at opposite sides of the pulsar.
Since the hot spots happen where the magnetic poles cross the surface of the pulsar, we would expect the beams of light to come from opposite sides of the pulsar.
But, when those groups mapped J0030, they found another surprising characteristic of the spots. All of the hot spots appear in the southern half of the pulsar, whether there were two or three of them.
This also means that the pulsar’s magnetic field is more complicated than our initial models!
J0030 is the first pulsar where we’ve mapped details of the heated regions on its surface. Will others have similarly bizarre-looking hotspots? Will they bring even more surprises? We’ll have to stay tuned to NICER find out!
And check out the video below for more about how this measurement was done.
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ShinKane or KouAka 💕 MY OTP
Obey Me characters as Mystic Messenger stickers lol
free to use
Chapters: 1/1 Fandom: Ghost Hunt Rating: Not Rated Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Relationships: Shibuya Kazuya/Taniyama Mai, Oliver Davis/Taniyama Mai Characters: Taniyama Mai, Oliver Davis Additional Tags: alcohol use Summary:
Naru receives a rude awakening at an ungodly hour by his far-too-inebriated assistant. Certain truths come to light in the fallout.
NSFW
TLC from Doctor Zayne
Once again, all audio comes from the game except for the music. No AI.
Last week Shiho Inada posted this new illustration on her locked account… and today she uploaded a new comic! But to get the joke behind it you’ll have to see this popular sketch by Japanese comedian Buruzon Chiemi: “Career Woman”. It’s a parody on a sassy career woman.
Original video with subtitles
English version of the skit
In a previous comic, Eugene made a prank video of him singing Piko Taro’s PPAP, while pretending to be Noll (who got very angry), and now…
Gene: Every day you work desperately to hunt ghosts, but it’s still okay if you don’t rush yourself that much.
Do you know how many ghosts there are on Earth?
Noll (thinking): He learned something weird again…
Gene: 3.5 BILLION… and 50 million more*.
This is Buruzon Eugene with Li… – Wait a minute! Lin! Didn’t I tell you to stand behind me!
Lin (with 3.5 billion on his back): I properly declined, didn’t I?
Noll (turns around): And? Will you tell me the grounds of your argument of there being 3.5 billion and 50 million spirits?
Gene: Ah! It’s not like that, this is really popular right now!
Lin, help meee!
* The 50 million refers to the uneven ratio of males to females in the world.
Like/reblog if you will use ♡
SQ.RISE 2021 SPRING has been released back on April, grab a copy to support Hoshino if you can!
Release 141 // [06.21.21]
We’re in dire need of translators, redrawers, and SFX letterers (more info here). Please consider applying if you want to help out and have the time!
Enjoy the chapter~
Behold! Another week, another Tuesday. Here are some things folk have made with their very own scissors. Yes, that’s right. Perhaps some pens, glue, even paints were involved. Let’s not jump to conclusions. Here, have some collages for your troubles.
GUYS GUYS I GOT SHIHO INADA’S MOST RECENT DOUJINSHI (from 2011)
TWINS IN HER CURRENT ART STYLE!!!!!!!!
WHAT IS THIS CUTENESS I’M GONNA DIEEEEEE *_____*
(Also god I really love seeing her draw Gene when he was alive because we get to see so many more expressions on him than in the actual manga…)