Andrew Yee[_1_]
July 11th 07, 12:19 AM
Megan Watzke
Chandra X-ray Center, Cambridge, Mass.
(Phone: 617/496-7998)
For Release: July 10, 2007
RCW 103: A Star with a Mystery Partner?
[http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2007/rcw103/]
When stars are more massive than about 8 times the Sun, they end their lives
in a spectacular explosion called a supernova. The outer layers of the star
are hurtled out into space at thousands of miles an hour, leaving a debris
field of gas and dust. Where the star once was located, a small, incredibly
dense object called a neutron star is often found. While only 10 miles or so
across, the tightly packed neutrons in such a star contain more mass than
the entire Sun.
A new X-ray image shows the 2,000 year-old-remnant of such a cosmic
explosion, known as RCW 103, which occurred about 10,000 light years from
Earth. In Chandra's image, the colors of red, green, and blue are mapped to
low, medium, and high-energy X-rays. At the center, the bright blue dot is
likely the neutron star that astronomers believe formed when the star
exploded. For several years astronomers have struggled to understand the
behavior of the this object, which exhibits unusually large variations in
its X-ray emission over a period of years. New evidence from Chandra implies
that the neutron star near the center is rotating once every 6.7 hours,
confirming recent work from XMM-Newton. This is much slower than a neutron
star of its age should be spinning. One possible solution to this mystery is
that the massive progenitor star to RCW 103 may not have exploded in
isolation. Rather, a low-mass star that is too dim to see directly may be
orbiting around the neutron star. Gas flowing from this unseen neighbor onto
the neutron star might be powering its X-ray emission, and the interaction
of the magnetic field of the two stars could have caused the neutron star to
slow its rotation.
Chandra X-ray Center, Cambridge, Mass.
(Phone: 617/496-7998)
For Release: July 10, 2007
RCW 103: A Star with a Mystery Partner?
[http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2007/rcw103/]
When stars are more massive than about 8 times the Sun, they end their lives
in a spectacular explosion called a supernova. The outer layers of the star
are hurtled out into space at thousands of miles an hour, leaving a debris
field of gas and dust. Where the star once was located, a small, incredibly
dense object called a neutron star is often found. While only 10 miles or so
across, the tightly packed neutrons in such a star contain more mass than
the entire Sun.
A new X-ray image shows the 2,000 year-old-remnant of such a cosmic
explosion, known as RCW 103, which occurred about 10,000 light years from
Earth. In Chandra's image, the colors of red, green, and blue are mapped to
low, medium, and high-energy X-rays. At the center, the bright blue dot is
likely the neutron star that astronomers believe formed when the star
exploded. For several years astronomers have struggled to understand the
behavior of the this object, which exhibits unusually large variations in
its X-ray emission over a period of years. New evidence from Chandra implies
that the neutron star near the center is rotating once every 6.7 hours,
confirming recent work from XMM-Newton. This is much slower than a neutron
star of its age should be spinning. One possible solution to this mystery is
that the massive progenitor star to RCW 103 may not have exploded in
isolation. Rather, a low-mass star that is too dim to see directly may be
orbiting around the neutron star. Gas flowing from this unseen neighbor onto
the neutron star might be powering its X-ray emission, and the interaction
of the magnetic field of the two stars could have caused the neutron star to
slow its rotation.