Author: Emily Conover / Source: Science News
For some neutron stars, the quickest way to cool off isn’t with a frosty beverage, but with lightweight, subatomic particles called neutrinos.
Scientists have spotted the first solid evidence that some neutron stars, the collapsed remnants of exploded stars, can rapidly cool their cores by emitting neutrinos. The result adds to evidence that scientists are gathering to understand the ultradense matter that is squished deep within a neutron star’s center.
The new evidence comes from a neutron star that repeatedly gobbled material from a neighboring star. The neutron star rapidly cooled off after its meals, scientists determined. X-rays emitted by the neutron star showed that the fast cooldown rate was consistent with a theorized effect called the direct Urca process, in which neutrinos quickly ferry energy away from a collapsed star, astrophysicist Edward Brown and colleagues report in the May 4 Physical Review Letters.
Neutron stars are known to emit neutrinos by a similar process that cools the star slowly. But previously, there wasn’t clear evidence for faster cooling. The team analyzed observations of the neutron star, located about 35,000 light-years from Earth, as it cooled during a 15-year interlude between feeding sessions. Neutrinos carried away energy about 10 times faster than the rate energy is radiated by the sun’s light — or about 100 million times quicker than the slow process, says…
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