Distorted Supernova, Exotic Pulsars, Nuclear Hellfire Video
Images from the Rossi 2000 Meeting
Distorted Supernova Remnant
This radio image from the Very Long Array shows the elongated shape of SNR W50. (The yellow and red ball of activity in the upper right-hand corner is an unrelated object.) Jets of particles from an unknown central object (the red dot in the center) are pushing the supernova remnant shell outward. The colors in the image refer to brightness, where red shows the brightest regions (such as the left and right wall of the shell, where particle interaction with the shell creates X rays), yellow is slightly less bright, then green, then blue -- the least brightest region. Note that the right wall is brighter than the left wall because the right region is denser with gas, thus there are more particle interaction.
"The colors in the image refer to brightness, where red and yellow shows bright filaments tracing the interaction of the jets with the ambient gas. Note that the left extension is filled with X-rays and trace the region where the jets hit the wall of the remnant. The right region is brighter and smaller in size because the jets appear to interact with a denser gas." -- lead scientist, Samar Safi-Harb
(Credit: VLA, Gloria Dubner)
AXP is Neutron Star
This is an artists conception of an Anomalous X-ray Pulsar (AXP) with magnetic fields, now shown to be part of the neutron star family. A neutron star is the tightly packed core-remains of a star once several times more massive than the sun that exhausted its nuclear fuel and subsequently exploded its outer shell. The core, still possessing about a sun's worth of mass, collapses to a sphere no larger than Philadelphia, about 10 miles in diameter. An AXP is a neutron star that pulses with X-ray light at irregular intervals.
(Credit: NASA)
This is an artists conception of a magnetar, an hypothesized sub-class of neutron stars that may be related to the Anomalous X-ray Pulsar. Magnetars would be the magnetic kings of the universe, a thousand times more magnetic than the already highly magnetic neutron stars. The magnetar's field could easily erase your credit cards and suck pens out of your pocket as far away as half the distance to the Moon, perhaps farther.
(Credit: NASA)
Nuclear Hellfire, Simulated Neutron Star Burning
These are computer simulations of nuclear burning on a neutron star. The nuclear fusion creates a chain reaction, detonating across a surface of evenly spread accreted gas. Within milliseconds, the polar regions erupt in X-ray light. The detonation travels through the pool of fuel. The computer simulations show surface waves on the hot ash that move much like ocean waves. When the surface wave moves ahead of the detonation front, it breaks just like a wave at the beach. The "beach" here is the unburned portion of the neutron star. This feature is displayed quite visibly, and beautifully, in the movies. Adding to the furry, the neutron star surface that is revealed, a section called the photosphere, is thrown violently upwards about 15 miles before the neutron star's extreme gravity yanks this material back down to the surface.
(Credit: University of Chicago ASCI)
[QuickTime movie of density changes] or [QuickTime movie of temperature changes]
-- more images at http://flash.uchicago.edu/~zingale/xray_gallery/xray_gallery.html --
