Thanks to data from ESA’s XMM-Newton spacecraft, European astronomers have observed for the first time rotating ‘hot spots’ on the surfaces of three nearby neutron stars.
This result provides a breakthrough in understanding the ‘thermal geography’ of neutron stars, and provides the first measurement of very small-sized features on objects hundreds to thousands light-years away. The spots vary in size from that of a football field to that of a golf course.
Neutron stars are extremely dense and fast-rotating stars mainly composed of neutrons. They are extremely hot when they are born, being remnants of supernovae explosions. Their surface temperature is thought to gradually cool down with time, decreasing to less than one million degrees after 100 000 years.
“This result is a first, and a key to understand the internal structure, the dominant role of the magnetic field treading the star interior and its magnetosphere, and the complex phenomenology of neutron stars,” says Patrizia Caraveo, of the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica (IASF), Milan, Italy.
“It has been possible only thanks to the new capabilities provided by the ESA XMM-Newton observatory. We look forward to applying our method to many more magnetically isolated neutron stars,” concludes Caraveo.
However, there is still a puzzle for the astronomers. If the three ‘musketeers’ are predicted to have polar caps of comparable dimensions, why then are the hot spots observed in the three cases so different in size, ranging from 60 metres to one kilometre? What mechanisms rule the difference? Or does this mean some of the current predictions on neutron stars magnetic fields need to be revised?
The result, by Andrea De Luca, Patrizia Caraveo, Sandro Mereghetti, Matteo Negroni (IASF) and Giovanni Bignami of CESR, Toulouse and University of Pavia, is published in the 20 April 05 issue of the Astrophysical Journal (http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/ApJ, vol. 623:1051-1069).
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