Astronomy Picture of the Day——中子星J0030表面的热点图

A Hotspot Map of Neutron Star J0030's Surface 
Image Credit: NASA, NICER, GSFC's CI Lab

Explanation: What do neutron stars look like? Previously these city-sized stars were too small and too far away to resolve. Recently, however, the first maps of the locations and sizes of hotspots on a neutron star's surface have been made by carefully modeling how the rapid spin makes the star's X-ray brightness rise and fall. Based on a leading model, anillustrative map of pulsar J0030+0451's hotspots is pictured, with the rest of the star's surface filled in with a false patchy blue. J0030 spins once every 0.0049 seconds and is located about 1000 light years away. The map was computed from data taken by NASA's Neutron star Interior Composition ExploreR (NICER) X-ray telescope attached to the International Space Station. The computed locations of these hotspots is surprising and not well understood. Because the gravitational lensing effect of neutron stars is so strong, J0300 displays more than half of its surface toward the Earth. Studying the appearance of pulsars like J0030 allows accurate estimates of the neutron star's mass, radius, and the internal physicsthat keeps the star from imploding into a black hole.

中子星J0030表面的热点图

中子星是什么样呢？过去，由于这些只有城市大小的恒星太小了，而且距离我们太远，所以导致它们无法分辨。然而，近日，地球上的科学家们通过详细模拟快速旋转如何使恒星的X射线亮度上升和下降的效应，绘制出了第一幅呈现中子星表面热点位置和大小的示意图。这幅图像是脉冲星J0030+0451的热点示意图，其余的恒星表面填充了一种假斑蓝色。J0030距离地球约1000光年，每隔0.0049秒旋转一周。这幅图像是NASA在国际空间站安装的中子星内部合成探测器X射线望远镜所获得的数据估算的结果绘制而成的。这些热点的估算位置令人惊讶，很难理解。由于中子星的引力透镜效应非常强，导致J0300一半以上的表面都朝向地球。研究像J0030这样的脉冲星可以精确估计中子星的质量、半径和内部物理特性，甚至防止中子星内爆进入黑洞。

高清原图地址：

https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/1912/J0030_NICER_1024.jpg

近期文章：

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