2023-10-06 11:00:16
A major astronomical discovery has just revolutionized our understanding of pulsars, these rapidly rotating neutron stars. For the first time, scientists have observed high-energy light emission from a pulsar, opening the door to new theories in physics (Physics (from the Greek φυσις, nature) is etymologically the… ).
Illustration of the Vela pulsar with particles accelerated to a speed close to that of light (Light is the set of electromagnetic waves visible to the eye…) by its magnetic field (In physics, the magnetic field (or induction magnetic, or flux density…).
Credit: Science Communication (Communication concerns humans as well (intra-psychic, interpersonal communication, etc.) Lab for DESY
The research team, including scientists from the National Center for Scientific Research (CNRS) in France, used the four telescopes of the HESS system to study the Vela pulsar. Located 1000 light years from Earth, this pulsar is one of the closest ever detected. The observations revealed that Vela’s gamma-ray emission is approximately 200 times more powerful than that of average pulsars.
Arache Djannati-Ataï, researcher at CNRS, declared: “We discovered photons of gamma rays reaching 20 teraelectronvolts (TeV) coming from from the Vela pulsar. These are the highest energy gamma rays ever detected from a pulsar.”
Artist’s rendering of a pulsar with twin cones of light emanating from its poles.
Credit: NASA JPL/Caltech
Pulsars, like Vela, are neutron stars born from the gravitational collapse of large stars at the end of their lives. These compact objects have a mass equivalent to one or two times that of the Sun, but are confined in a space the size of an average city, or regarding 20 kilometers (The meter (symbol m, from the Greek metron, measurement) is l ‘basic unit of length of the System…) of diameter (In a circle or a sphere, the diameter is a line segment passing through the center…). The Vela pulsar, created regarding 10,000 years ago, rotates at an impressive speed of 11 rotations per second (Second is the feminine of the adjective second, which comes immediately following the first or which…).
These neutron stars also have extremely powerful magnetic fields, which accelerate particles such as electrons to speeds close to that of light. These particles generate jets of matter, forming cones of light which sweep across the Earth at regular intervals, giving rise to the phenomenon of pulsars. .
The research team proposes several theories to explain this high-energy gamma ray emission. It is possible that particles are accelerated outside the standard areas of light cones, or that well-structured magnetic fields exist beyond these areas.
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