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Astronomy

23.4 Pulsars and the Discovery of Neutron Stars

Astronomy23.4 Pulsars and the Discovery of Neutron Stars

Table of contents
  1. Preface
  2. 1 Science and the Universe: A Brief Tour
    1. Introduction
    2. 1.1 The Nature of Astronomy
    3. 1.2 The Nature of Science
    4. 1.3 The Laws of Nature
    5. 1.4 Numbers in Astronomy
    6. 1.5 Consequences of Light Travel Time
    7. 1.6 A Tour of the Universe
    8. 1.7 The Universe on the Large Scale
    9. 1.8 The Universe of the Very Small
    10. 1.9 A Conclusion and a Beginning
    11. For Further Exploration
  3. 2 Observing the Sky: The Birth of Astronomy
    1. Thinking Ahead
    2. 2.1 The Sky Above
    3. 2.2 Ancient Astronomy
    4. 2.3 Astrology and Astronomy
    5. 2.4 The Birth of Modern Astronomy
    6. Key Terms
    7. Summary
    8. For Further Exploration
    9. Collaborative Group Activities
    10. Exercises
      1. Review Questions
      2. Thought Questions
      3. Figuring for Yourself
  4. 3 Orbits and Gravity
    1. Thinking Ahead
    2. 3.1 The Laws of Planetary Motion
    3. 3.2 Newton’s Great Synthesis
    4. 3.3 Newton’s Universal Law of Gravitation
    5. 3.4 Orbits in the Solar System
    6. 3.5 Motions of Satellites and Spacecraft
    7. 3.6 Gravity with More Than Two Bodies
    8. Key Terms
    9. Summary
    10. For Further Exploration
    11. Collaborative Group Activities
    12. Exercises
      1. Review Questions
      2. Thought Questions
      3. Figuring for Yourself
  5. 4 Earth, Moon, and Sky
    1. Thinking Ahead
    2. 4.1 Earth and Sky
    3. 4.2 The Seasons
    4. 4.3 Keeping Time
    5. 4.4 The Calendar
    6. 4.5 Phases and Motions of the Moon
    7. 4.6 Ocean Tides and the Moon
    8. 4.7 Eclipses of the Sun and Moon
    9. Key Terms
    10. Summary
    11. For Further Exploration
    12. Collaborative Group Activities
    13. Exercises
      1. Review Questions
      2. Thought Questions
      3. Figuring for Yourself
  6. 5 Radiation and Spectra
    1. Thinking Ahead
    2. 5.1 The Behavior of Light
    3. 5.2 The Electromagnetic Spectrum
    4. 5.3 Spectroscopy in Astronomy
    5. 5.4 The Structure of the Atom
    6. 5.5 Formation of Spectral Lines
    7. 5.6 The Doppler Effect
    8. Key Terms
    9. Summary
    10. For Further Exploration
    11. Collaborative Group Activities
    12. Exercises
      1. Review Questions
      2. Thought Questions
      3. Figuring for Yourself
  7. 6 Astronomical Instruments
    1. Thinking Ahead
    2. 6.1 Telescopes
    3. 6.2 Telescopes Today
    4. 6.3 Visible-Light Detectors and Instruments
    5. 6.4 Radio Telescopes
    6. 6.5 Observations outside Earth’s Atmosphere
    7. 6.6 The Future of Large Telescopes
    8. Key Terms
    9. Summary
    10. For Further Exploration
    11. Collaborative Group Activities
    12. Exercises
      1. Review Questions
      2. Thought Questions
      3. Figuring for Yourself
  8. 7 Other Worlds: An Introduction to the Solar System
    1. Thinking Ahead
    2. 7.1 Overview of Our Planetary System
    3. 7.2 Composition and Structure of Planets
    4. 7.3 Dating Planetary Surfaces
    5. 7.4 Origin of the Solar System
    6. Key Terms
    7. Summary
    8. For Further Exploration
    9. Collaborative Group Activities
    10. Exercises
      1. Review Questions
      2. Thought Questions
      3. Figuring for Yourself
  9. 8 Earth as a Planet
    1. Thinking Ahead
    2. 8.1 The Global Perspective
    3. 8.2 Earth’s Crust
    4. 8.3 Earth’s Atmosphere
    5. 8.4 Life, Chemical Evolution, and Climate Change
    6. 8.5 Cosmic Influences on the Evolution of Earth
    7. Key Terms
    8. Summary
    9. For Further Exploration
    10. Collaborative Group Activities
    11. Exercises
      1. Review Questions
      2. Thought Questions
      3. Figuring for Yourself
  10. 9 Cratered Worlds
    1. Thinking Ahead
    2. 9.1 General Properties of the Moon
    3. 9.2 The Lunar Surface
    4. 9.3 Impact Craters
    5. 9.4 The Origin of the Moon
    6. 9.5 Mercury
    7. Key Terms
    8. Summary
    9. For Further Exploration
    10. Collaborative Group Activities
    11. Exercises
      1. Review Questions
      2. Thought Questions
      3. Figuring for Yourself
  11. 10 Earthlike Planets: Venus and Mars
    1. Thinking Ahead
    2. 10.1 The Nearest Planets: An Overview
    3. 10.2 The Geology of Venus
    4. 10.3 The Massive Atmosphere of Venus
    5. 10.4 The Geology of Mars
    6. 10.5 Water and Life on Mars
    7. 10.6 Divergent Planetary Evolution
    8. Key Terms
    9. Summary
    10. For Further Exploration
    11. Collaborative Group Activities
    12. Exercises
      1. Review Questions
      2. Thought Questions
      3. Figuring for Yourself
  12. 11 The Giant Planets
    1. Thinking Ahead
    2. 11.1 Exploring the Outer Planets
    3. 11.2 The Giant Planets
    4. 11.3 Atmospheres of the Giant Planets
    5. Key Terms
    6. Summary
    7. For Further Exploration
    8. Collaborative Group Activities
    9. Exercises
      1. Review Questions
      2. Thought Questions
      3. Figuring for Yourself
  13. 12 Rings, Moons, and Pluto
    1. Thinking Ahead
    2. 12.1 Ring and Moon Systems Introduced
    3. 12.2 The Galilean Moons of Jupiter
    4. 12.3 Titan and Triton
    5. 12.4 Pluto and Charon
    6. 12.5 Planetary Rings (and Enceladus)
    7. Key Terms
    8. Summary
    9. For Further Exploration
    10. Collaborative Group Activities
    11. Exercises
      1. Review Questions
      2. Thought Questions
      3. Figuring for Yourself
  14. 13 Comets and Asteroids: Debris of the Solar System
    1. Thinking Ahead
    2. 13.1 Asteroids
    3. 13.2 Asteroids and Planetary Defense
    4. 13.3 The “Long-Haired” Comets
    5. 13.4 The Origin and Fate of Comets and Related Objects
    6. Key Terms
    7. Summary
    8. For Further Exploration
    9. Collaborative Group Activities
    10. Exercises
      1. Review Questions
      2. Thought Questions
      3. Figuring for Yourself
  15. 14 Cosmic Samples and the Origin of the Solar System
    1. Thinking Ahead
    2. 14.1 Meteors
    3. 14.2 Meteorites: Stones from Heaven
    4. 14.3 Formation of the Solar System
    5. 14.4 Comparison with Other Planetary Systems
    6. 14.5 Planetary Evolution
    7. Key Terms
    8. Summary
    9. For Further Exploration
    10. Collaborative Group Activities
    11. Exercises
      1. Review Questions
      2. Thought Questions
      3. Figuring for Yourself
  16. 15 The Sun: A Garden-Variety Star
    1. Thinking Ahead
    2. 15.1 The Structure and Composition of the Sun
    3. 15.2 The Solar Cycle
    4. 15.3 Solar Activity above the Photosphere
    5. 15.4 Space Weather
    6. Key Terms
    7. Summary
    8. For Further Exploration
    9. Collaborative Group Activities
    10. Exercises
      1. Review Questions
      2. Thought Questions
      3. Figuring for Yourself
  17. 16 The Sun: A Nuclear Powerhouse
    1. Thinking Ahead
    2. 16.1 Sources of Sunshine: Thermal and Gravitational Energy
    3. 16.2 Mass, Energy, and the Theory of Relativity
    4. 16.3 The Solar Interior: Theory
    5. 16.4 The Solar Interior: Observations
    6. Key Terms
    7. Summary
    8. For Further Exploration
    9. Collaborative Group Activities
    10. Exercises
      1. Review Questions
      2. Thought Questions
      3. Figuring for Yourself
  18. 17 Analyzing Starlight
    1. Thinking Ahead
    2. 17.1 The Brightness of Stars
    3. 17.2 Colors of Stars
    4. 17.3 The Spectra of Stars (and Brown Dwarfs)
    5. 17.4 Using Spectra to Measure Stellar Radius, Composition, and Motion
    6. Key Terms
    7. Summary
    8. For Further Exploration
    9. Collaborative Group Activities
    10. Exercises
      1. Review Questions
      2. Thought Questions
      3. Figuring for Yourself
  19. 18 The Stars: A Celestial Census
    1. Thinking Ahead
    2. 18.1 A Stellar Census
    3. 18.2 Measuring Stellar Masses
    4. 18.3 Diameters of Stars
    5. 18.4 The H–R Diagram
    6. Key Terms
    7. Summary
    8. For Further Exploration
    9. Collaborative Group Activities
    10. Exercises
      1. Review Questions
      2. Thought Questions
      3. Figuring for Yourself
  20. 19 Celestial Distances
    1. Thinking Ahead
    2. 19.1 Fundamental Units of Distance
    3. 19.2 Surveying the Stars
    4. 19.3 Variable Stars: One Key to Cosmic Distances
    5. 19.4 The H–R Diagram and Cosmic Distances
    6. Key Terms
    7. Summary
    8. For Further Exploration
    9. Collaborative Group Activities
    10. Exercises
      1. Review Questions
      2. Thought Questions
      3. Figuring for Yourself
  21. 20 Between the Stars: Gas and Dust in Space
    1. Thinking Ahead
    2. 20.1 The Interstellar Medium
    3. 20.2 Interstellar Gas
    4. 20.3 Cosmic Dust
    5. 20.4 Cosmic Rays
    6. 20.5 The Life Cycle of Cosmic Material
    7. 20.6 Interstellar Matter around the Sun
    8. Key Terms
    9. Summary
    10. For Further Exploration
    11. Collaborative Group Activities
    12. Exercises
      1. Review Questions
      2. Thought Questions
      3. Figuring for Yourself
  22. 21 The Birth of Stars and the Discovery of Planets outside the Solar System
    1. Thinking Ahead
    2. 21.1 Star Formation
    3. 21.2 The H–R Diagram and the Study of Stellar Evolution
    4. 21.3 Evidence That Planets Form around Other Stars
    5. 21.4 Planets beyond the Solar System: Search and Discovery
    6. 21.5 Exoplanets Everywhere: What We Are Learning
    7. 21.6 New Perspectives on Planet Formation
    8. Key Terms
    9. Summary
    10. For Further Exploration
    11. Collaborative Group Activities
    12. Exercises
      1. Review Questions
      2. Thought Questions
      3. Figuring for Yourself
  23. 22 Stars from Adolescence to Old Age
    1. Thinking Ahead
    2. 22.1 Evolution from the Main Sequence to Red Giants
    3. 22.2 Star Clusters
    4. 22.3 Checking Out the Theory
    5. 22.4 Further Evolution of Stars
    6. 22.5 The Evolution of More Massive Stars
    7. Key Terms
    8. Summary
    9. For Further Exploration
    10. Collaborative Group Activities
    11. Exercises
      1. Review Questions
      2. Thought Questions
      3. Figuring for Yourself
  24. 23 The Death of Stars
    1. Thinking Ahead
    2. 23.1 The Death of Low-Mass Stars
    3. 23.2 Evolution of Massive Stars: An Explosive Finish
    4. 23.3 Supernova Observations
    5. 23.4 Pulsars and the Discovery of Neutron Stars
    6. 23.5 The Evolution of Binary Star Systems
    7. 23.6 The Mystery of the Gamma-Ray Bursts
    8. Key Terms
    9. Summary
    10. For Further Exploration
    11. Collaborative Group Activities
    12. Exercises
      1. Review Questions
      2. Thought Questions
      3. Figuring for Yourself
  25. 24 Black Holes and Curved Spacetime
    1. Thinking Ahead
    2. 24.1 Introducing General Relativity
    3. 24.2 Spacetime and Gravity
    4. 24.3 Tests of General Relativity
    5. 24.4 Time in General Relativity
    6. 24.5 Black Holes
    7. 24.6 Evidence for Black Holes
    8. 24.7 Gravitational Wave Astronomy
    9. Key Terms
    10. Summary
    11. For Further Exploration
    12. Collaborative Group Activities
    13. Exercises
      1. Review Questions
      2. Thought Questions
      3. Figuring for Yourself
  26. 25 The Milky Way Galaxy
    1. Thinking Ahead
    2. 25.1 The Architecture of the Galaxy
    3. 25.2 Spiral Structure
    4. 25.3 The Mass of the Galaxy
    5. 25.4 The Center of the Galaxy
    6. 25.5 Stellar Populations in the Galaxy
    7. 25.6 The Formation of the Galaxy
    8. Key Terms
    9. Summary
    10. For Further Exploration
    11. Collaborative Group Activities
    12. Exercises
      1. Review Questions
      2. Thought Questions
      3. Figuring for Yourself
  27. 26 Galaxies
    1. Thinking Ahead
    2. 26.1 The Discovery of Galaxies
    3. 26.2 Types of Galaxies
    4. 26.3 Properties of Galaxies
    5. 26.4 The Extragalactic Distance Scale
    6. 26.5 The Expanding Universe
    7. Key Terms
    8. Summary
    9. For Further Exploration
    10. Collaborative Group Activities
    11. Exercises
      1. Review Questions
      2. Thought Questions
      3. Figuring for Yourself
  28. 27 Active Galaxies, Quasars, and Supermassive Black Holes
    1. Thinking Ahead
    2. 27.1 Quasars
    3. 27.2 Supermassive Black Holes: What Quasars Really Are
    4. 27.3 Quasars as Probes of Evolution in the Universe
    5. Key Terms
    6. Summary
    7. For Further Exploration
    8. Collaborative Group Activities
    9. Exercises
      1. Review Questions
      2. Thought Questions
      3. Figuring for Yourself
  29. 28 The Evolution and Distribution of Galaxies
    1. Thinking Ahead
    2. 28.1 Observations of Distant Galaxies
    3. 28.2 Galaxy Mergers and Active Galactic Nuclei
    4. 28.3 The Distribution of Galaxies in Space
    5. 28.4 The Challenge of Dark Matter
    6. 28.5 The Formation and Evolution of Galaxies and Structure in the Universe
    7. Key Terms
    8. Summary
    9. For Further Exploration
    10. Collaborative Group Activities
    11. Exercises
      1. Review Questions
      2. Thought Questions
      3. Figuring for Yourself
  30. 29 The Big Bang
    1. Thinking Ahead
    2. 29.1 The Age of the Universe
    3. 29.2 A Model of the Universe
    4. 29.3 The Beginning of the Universe
    5. 29.4 The Cosmic Microwave Background
    6. 29.5 What Is the Universe Really Made Of?
    7. 29.6 The Inflationary Universe
    8. 29.7 The Anthropic Principle
    9. Key Terms
    10. Summary
    11. For Further Exploration
    12. Collaborative Group Activities
    13. Exercises
      1. Review Questions
      2. Thought Questions
      3. Figuring for Yourself
  31. 30 Life in the Universe
    1. Thinking Ahead
    2. 30.1 The Cosmic Context for Life
    3. 30.2 Astrobiology
    4. 30.3 Searching for Life beyond Earth
    5. 30.4 The Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence
    6. Key Terms
    7. Summary
    8. For Further Exploration
    9. Collaborative Group Activities
    10. Exercises
      1. Review Questions
      2. Thought Questions
      3. Figuring for Yourself
  32. A | How to Study for an Introductory Astronomy Class
  33. B | Astronomy Websites, Images, and Apps
  34. C | Scientific Notation
  35. D | Units Used in Science
  36. E | Some Useful Constants for Astronomy
  37. F | Physical and Orbital Data for the Planets
  38. G | Selected Moons of the Planets
  39. H | Future Total Eclipses
  40. I | The Nearest Stars, Brown Dwarfs, and White Dwarfs
  41. J | The Brightest Twenty Stars
  42. K | The Chemical Elements
  43. L | The Constellations
  44. M | Star Chart and Sky Event Resources
  45. Index

Learning Objectives

By the end of this section, you will be able to:

  • Explain the research method that led to the discovery of neutron stars, located hundreds or thousands of light-years away
  • Describe the features of a neutron star that allow it to be detected as a pulsar
  • List the observational evidence that links pulsars and neutron stars to supernovae

After a type II supernova explosion fades away, all that is left behind is either a neutron star or something even more strange, a black hole. We will describe the properties of black holes in Black Holes and Curved Spacetime, but for now, we want to examine how the neutron stars we discussed earlier might become observable.

Neutron stars are the densest objects in the universe; the force of gravity at their surface is 1011 times greater than what we experience at Earth’s surface. The interior of a neutron star is composed of about 95% neutrons, with a small number of protons and electrons mixed in. In effect, a neutron star is a giant atomic nucleus, with a mass about 1057 times the mass of a proton. Its diameter is more like the size of a small town or an asteroid than a star. (Table 23.3 compares the properties of neutron stars and white dwarfs.) Because it is so small, a neutron star probably strikes you as the object least likely to be observed from thousands of light-years away. Yet neutron stars do manage to signal their presence across vast gulfs of space.

Properties of a Typical White Dwarf and a Neutron Star
Property White Dwarf Neutron Star
Mass (Sun = 1) 0.6 (always <1.4) Always >1.4 and <3
Radius 7000 km 10 km
Density 8 × 105 g/cm3 1014 g/cm3
Table 23.3

The Discovery of Neutron Stars

In 1967, Jocelyn Bell, a research student at Cambridge University, was studying distant radio sources with a special detector that had been designed and built by her advisor Antony Hewish to find rapid variations in radio signals. The project computers spewed out reams of paper showing where the telescope had surveyed the sky, and it was the job of Hewish’s graduate students to go through it all, searching for interesting phenomena. In September 1967, Bell discovered what she called “a bit of scruff”—a strange radio signal unlike anything seen before.

What Bell had found, in the constellation of Vulpecula, was a source of rapid, sharp, intense, and extremely regular pulses of radio radiation. Like the regular ticking of a clock, the pulses arrived precisely every 1.33728 seconds. Such exactness first led the scientists to speculate that perhaps they had found signals from an intelligent civilization. Radio astronomers even half-jokingly dubbed the source “LGM” for “little green men.” Soon, however, three similar sources were discovered in widely separated directions in the sky.

When it became apparent that this type of radio source was fairly common, astronomers concluded that they were highly unlikely to be signals from other civilizations. By today, nearly 3000 such sources have been discovered; they are now called pulsars, short for “pulsating radio sources.”

The pulse periods of different pulsars range from a little longer than 1/1000 of a second to nearly 10 seconds. At first, the pulsars seemed particularly mysterious because nothing could be seen at their location on visible-light photographs. But then a pulsar was discovered right in the center of the Crab Nebula, a cloud of gas produced by SN 1054, a supernova that was recorded by the Chinese in 1054 (Figure 23.14). The energy from the Crab Nebula pulsar arrives in sharp bursts that occur 30 times each second—with a regularity that would be the envy of a Swiss watchmaker. In addition to pulses of radio energy, we can observe pulses of visible light and X-rays from the Crab Nebula. The fact that the pulsar was just in the region of the supernova remnant where we expect the leftover neutron star to be immediately alerted astronomers that pulsars might be connected with these elusive “corpses” of massive stars.

The Crab Nebula. At center, the pulsar is drawn as a white spot in the middle of concentric rings drawn in blue. A white jet of material spews from the pulsar toward the lower left part of the image. The pulsar, rings and jet are surrounded by a diffuse cloud of gas drawn in yellow.
Figure 23.14 Crab Nebula. This image shows X-ray emissions from the Crab Nebula, which is about 6500 light-years away. The pulsar is the bright spot at the center of the concentric rings. Data taken over about a year show that particles stream away from the inner ring at about half the speed of light. The jet that is perpendicular to this ring is a stream of matter and antimatter electrons also moving at half the speed of light. (credit: modification of work by NASA/CXC/SAO)

The Crab Nebula is a fascinating object. The whole nebula glows with radiation at many wavelengths, and its overall energy output is more than 100,000 times that of the Sun—not a bad trick for the remnant of a supernova that exploded almost a thousand years ago. Astronomers soon began to look for a connection between the pulsar and the large energy output of the surrounding nebula.

A Spinning Lighthouse Model

By applying a combination of theory and observation, astronomers eventually concluded that pulsars must be spinning neutron stars. According to this model, a neutron star is something like a lighthouse on a rocky coast (Figure 23.15). To warn ships in all directions and yet not cost too much to operate, the light in a modern lighthouse turns, sweeping its beam across the dark sea. From the vantage point of a ship, you see a pulse of light each time the beam points in your direction. In the same way, radiation from a small region on a neutron star sweeps across the oceans of space, giving us a pulse of radiation each time the beam points toward Earth.

Photograph of a lighthouse on the coast of Japan.
Figure 23.15 Lighthouse. A lighthouse in California warns ships on the ocean not to approach too close to the dangerous shoreline. The lighted section at the top rotates so that its beam can cover all directions. (credit: Anita Ritenour)

Neutron stars are ideal candidates for such a job because the collapse has made them so small that they can turn very rapidly. Recall the principle of the conservation of angular momentum from Newton’s Great Synthesis: if an object gets smaller, it can spin more rapidly. Even if the parent star was rotating very slowly when it was on the main sequence, its rotation had to speed up as it collapsed to form a neutron star. With a diameter of only 10 to 20 kilometers, a neutron star can complete one full spin in only a fraction of a second. This is just the sort of time period we observe between pulsar pulses.

Any magnetic field that existed in the original star will be highly compressed when the core collapses to a neutron star. At the surface of the neutron star, in the outer layer consisting of ordinary matter (and not just pure neutrons), protons and electrons are caught up in this spinning field and accelerated nearly to the speed of light. In only two places—the north and south magnetic poles—can the trapped particles escape the strong hold of the magnetic field (Figure 23.16). The same effect can be seen (in reverse) on Earth, where charged particles from space are kept out by our planet’s magnetic field everywhere except near the poles. As a result, Earth’s auroras (caused when charged particles hit the atmosphere at high speed) are seen mainly near the poles.

Model of a Pulsar. In this illustration the Earth is drawn below center, in the path of an approaching “Beam of particles and radiation”. The pulsar, labeled “Neutron star”, is drawn at upper right as a blue sphere. Its rotation axis is drawn vertically upward, with a counter-clockwise arrow around it indicating the direction of rotation. The magnetic field lines are drawn in a plane perpendicular to the rotation axis as concentric red ellipses on either side of the star. The field lines intersect the surface of the star at the “North magnetic pole”, which faces Earth, and the “South magnetic pole”, which faces toward upper right. The beam of radiation is emitted from the poles of the magnetic field, and extend toward upper right and lower left.
Figure 23.16 Model of a Pulsar. A diagram showing how beams of radiation at the magnetic poles of a neutron star can give rise to pulses of emission as the star rotates. As each beam sweeps over Earth, like a lighthouse beam sweeping over a distant ship, we see a short pulse of radiation. This model requires that the magnetic poles be located in different places from the rotation poles. (credit “stars”: modification of work by Tony Hisgett)

Note that in a neutron star, the magnetic north and south poles do not have to be anywhere close to the north and south poles defined by the star’s rotation. In the same way, we discussed in the chapter on The Giant Planets that the magnetic poles on the planets Uranus and Neptune are not lined up with the poles of the planet’s spin. Figure 23.16 shows the poles of the magnetic field perpendicular to the poles of rotation, but the two kinds of poles could make any angle.

In fact, the misalignment of the rotational axis with the magnetic axis plays a crucial role in the generation of the observed pulses in this model. At the two magnetic poles, the particles from the neutron star are focused into a narrow beam and come streaming out of the whirling magnetic region at enormous speeds. They emit energy over a broad range of the electromagnetic spectrum. The radiation itself is also confined to a narrow beam, which explains why the pulsar acts like a lighthouse. As the rotation carries first one and then the other magnetic pole of the star into our view, we see a pulse of radiation each time.

Tests of the Model

This explanation of pulsars in terms of beams of radiation from highly magnetic and rapidly spinning neutron stars is a very clever idea. But what evidence do we have that it is the correct model? First, we can measure the masses of some pulsars, and they do turn out be in the range of 1.4 to 1.8 times that of the Sun—just what theorists predict for neutron stars. The masses are found using Kepler’s law for those few pulsars that are members of binary star systems.

But there is an even-better confirming argument, which brings us back to the Crab Nebula and its vast energy output. When the high-energy charged particles from the neutron star pulsar hit the slower-moving material from the supernova, they energize this material and cause it to “glow” at many different wavelengths—just what we observe from the Crab Nebula. The pulsar beams are a power source that “light up” the nebula long after the initial explosion of the star that made it.

Who “pays the bills” for all the energy we see coming out of a remnant like the Crab Nebula? After all, when energy emerges from one place, it must be depleted in another. The ultimate energy source in our model is the rotation of the neutron star, which propels charged particles outward and spins its magnetic field at enormous speeds. As its rotational energy is used to excite the Crab Nebula year after year, the pulsar inside the nebula slows down. As it slows, the pulses come a little less often; more time elapses before the slower neutron star brings its beam back around.

Several decades of careful observations have now shown that the Crab Nebula pulsar is not a perfectly regular clock as we originally thought: instead, it is gradually slowing down. Having measured how much the pulsar is slowing down, we can calculate how much rotation energy the neutron star is losing. Remember that it is very densely packed and spins amazingly quickly. Even a tiny slowing down can mean an immense loss of energy.

To the satisfaction of astronomers, the rotational energy lost by the pulsar turns out to be the same as the amount of energy emerging from the nebula surrounding it. In other words, the slowing down of a rotating neutron star can explain precisely why the Crab Nebula is glowing with the amount of energy we observe.

The Evolution of Pulsars

From observations of the pulsars discovered so far, astronomers have concluded that one new pulsar is born somewhere in the Galaxy every 25 to 100 years, the same rate at which supernovae are estimated to occur. Calculations suggest that the typical lifetime of a pulsar is about 10 million years; after that, the neutron star no longer rotates fast enough to produce significant beams of particles and energy, and is no longer observable. We estimate that there are about 100 million neutron stars in our Galaxy, most of them rotating too slowly to come to our notice.

The Crab pulsar is rather young (only about 960 years old) and has a short period, whereas other, older pulsars have already slowed to longer periods. Pulsars thousands of years old have lost too much energy to emit appreciably in the visible and X-ray wavelengths, and they are observed only as radio pulsars; their periods are a second or longer.

There is one other reason we can see only a fraction of the pulsars in the Galaxy. Consider our lighthouse model again. On Earth, all ships approach on the same plane—the surface of the ocean—so the lighthouse can be built to sweep its beam over that surface. But in space, objects can be anywhere in three dimensions. As a given pulsar’s beam sweeps over a circle in space, there is absolutely no guarantee that this circle will include the direction of Earth. In fact, if you think about it, many more circles in space will not include Earth than will include it. Thus, we estimate that we are unable to observe a large number of neutron stars because their pulsar beams miss us entirely.

At the same time, it turns out that only a few of the pulsars discovered so far are embedded in the visible clouds of gas that mark the remnant of a supernova. This might at first seem mysterious, since we know that supernovae give rise to neutron stars and we should expect each pulsar to have begun its life in a supernova explosion. But the lifetime of a pulsar turns out to be about 100 times longer than the length of time required for the expanding gas of a supernova remnant to disperse into interstellar space. Thus, most pulsars are found with no other trace left of the explosion that produced them.

In addition, some pulsars are ejected by a supernova explosion that is not the same in all directions. If the supernova explosion is stronger on one side, it can kick the pulsar entirely out of the supernova remnant (some astronomers call this “getting a birth kick”). We know such kicks happen because we see a number of young supernova remnants in nearby galaxies where the pulsar is to one side of the remnant and racing away at several hundred miles per second (Figure 23.17).

Multi-wavelength Image of a Pulsar’s Trail. The thin trail of light left as the pulsar moves through space is seen at lower right, above one of two bright stars in this image. The other bright star is at upper left, surrounded by a cloud of diffuse gas.
Figure 23.17 Speeding Pulsar. This intriguing image (which combines X-ray, visible, and radio observations) shows the jet trailing behind a pulsar (at bottom right, lined up between the two bright stars). With a length of 37 light-years, the jet trail (seen in purple) is the longest ever observed from an object in the Milky Way. (There is also a mysterious shorter, comet-like tail that is almost perpendicular to the purple jet.) Moving at a speed between 2.5 and 5 million miles per hour, the pulsar is traveling away from the core of the supernova remnant where it originated. (credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/ISDC/L.Pavan et al, Radio: CSIRO/ATNF/ATCA Optical: 2MASS/UMass/IPAC-Caltech/NASA/NSF)

Making Connections

Touched by a Neutron Star

On December 27, 2004, Earth was bathed with a stream of X-ray and gamma-ray radiation from a neutron star known as SGR 1806-20. What made this event so remarkable was that, despite the distance of the source, its tidal wave of radiation had measurable effects on Earth’s atmosphere. The apparent brightness of this gamma-ray flare was greater than any historical star explosion.

The primary effect of the radiation was on a layer high in Earth’s atmosphere called the ionosphere. At night, the ionosphere is normally at a height of about 85 kilometers, but during the day, energy from the Sun ionizes more molecules and lowers the boundary of the ionosphere to a height of about 60 kilometers. The pulse of X-ray and gamma-ray radiation produced about the same level of ionization as the daytime Sun. It also caused some sensitive satellites above the atmosphere to shut down their electronics.

Measurements by telescopes in space indicate that SGR 1806-20 was a special type of fast-spinning neutron star called a magnetar. Astronomers Robert Duncan and Christopher Thomson gave them this name because their magnetic fields are stronger than that of any other type of astronomical source—in this case, about 800 trillion times stronger than the magnetic field of Earth.

A magnetar is thought to consist of a superdense core of neutrons surrounded by a rigid crust of atoms about a mile deep with a surface made of iron. The magnetar’s field is so strong that it creates huge stresses inside that can sometimes crack open the hard crust, causing a starquarke. The vibrating crust produces an enormous blast of radiation. An astronaut 0.1 light-year from this particular magnetar would have received a fatal does from the blast in less than a second.

Fortunately, we were far enough away from magnetar SGR 1806-20 to be safe. Could a magnetar ever present a real danger to Earth? To produce enough energy to disrupt the ozone layer, a magnetar would have to be located within the cloud of comets that surround the solar system, and we know no magnetars are that close. Nevertheless, it is a fascinating discovery that events on distant star corpses can have measurable effects on Earth.

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