Astronomers from New York University in Abu Dhabi have revealed the unusual behavior of the J1023 pulsar, located 4.5 thousand light-years from Earth. They found that a space object pulled matter from a nearby star and ejected it into space. To work published In the scientific journal Astronomy and Astrophysics (A&A).
The pulsar is a rapidly rotating neutron star. Like all neutron stars, pulsars are born after the death of massive stars that have depleted their fuel reserves.
According to Maria Cristina Batllo, head of the scientific group, scientists witnessed unusual cosmic events in which the J1023 pulsar ejected large amounts of matter into interstellar space at short intervals measured in tens of seconds.
Astronomers observed the pulsar with 12 space and ground-based telescopes. They found that J1023 constantly switches between active and passive modes, due to the interaction between streams of high-energy particles emanating from the dead star and matter that is constantly attracted by the object’s strong gravitational field.
While the pulsar “feeds” with matter from a neighboring star, it goes out for a while and then activates, ejecting excess material into outer space. Changing neutron star modes can take from a few seconds to several minutes.
Earlier astronomers to create A new type of star with a record-breaking strong magnetic field.