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An artist's impression of the pulsar binary star system - the mysterious dark object in this illustration is a black hole.
The bright background star is the pulsar PSR J0514-4002E.
© MPIfR;
Daniëlle Futselaar (artsource.nl)
Researchers have discovered a mysterious object in space.
Is it a lightweight black hole, a massive neutron star – or something else?
Bonn – An international research team led by Ewan Barr and Arunima Dutta (Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn) has discovered a dark, mysterious celestial object in the universe.
With a mass 2.35 times greater than our Sun, it surpasses the most massive known neutron stars while being less massive than the smallest black hole known to date.
The mass lies exactly in the so-called mass gap between neutron stars and black holes.
According to current theory, a neutron star cannot have more than 2.2 times the mass of the sun.
If this were the case, it would become a black hole with a gravitational pull so strong that even light cannot escape.
However, black holes in the universe are only known to be around five solar masses - a mass gap in which no objects are known to date.
Mysterious object in space: black hole, neutron star or something else?
So is the newly discovered mysterious object a particularly light black hole or a particularly massive neutron star?
The research team has not yet been able to provide a definitive answer to this question.
In a guest article on
The Conversation
, the team explains why the object is so fascinating: “If we ever want to understand the physics at the boundary between neutron stars and black holes, we have to find objects at this boundary.”
The study, in which the team reports its discovery for the first time, was
published in the journal
Science .
The dark, mysterious object was discovered by the research team in the globular star cluster NGC 1851 in the southern constellation Columba (Dove).
Within this globular cluster, the group observed a pulsar - a type of neutron star that rotates very quickly and sends radio signals into the universe.
The newly discovered pulsar PSR J0514-4002E rotates around its own axis more than 170 times per second - each revolution producing a pulse that resembles the ticking of a clock.
By measuring this “ticking,” researchers can accurately determine the pulsar’s orbital motion.
Dark object in the universe: Researchers are thrilled with their discovery
“Imagine being able to put a nearly perfect stopwatch into the orbit of a star nearly 40,000 light-years away and then measure the time of the orbits with microsecond precision,” Barr said of so-called pulsar timing.
When measuring the newly discovered pulsar, the research team discovered that the celestial body orbits an invisible object.
The group was also able to determine the mass of the mysterious object.
The research team has discovered a new pulsar and a mysterious dark companion object in the globular star cluster NGC 1851.
© IMAGO/piemags
“Whatever this object is, it is exciting news,” explains co-author Paulo Freire in a statement from the Max Planck Institute.
“If it is a black hole, it is the first known pulsar-black hole system, the discovery of which has been the holy grail of pulsar astronomy for decades!” However, if it is a neutron star, it would have “fundamental implications for “Understanding the unknown state of matter at these incredible densities,” the researcher adds.
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An artist's impression of the pulsar binary star system - the mysterious dark object in this illustration is a black hole.
The bright background star is the pulsar PSR J0514-4002E.
© MPIfR;
Daniëlle Futselaar (artsource.nl)
Mysterious object is located in a tight globular cluster
The research team has an initial theory for the formation of the mysterious object: The dark object and the pulsar are located in a globular star cluster in which there is very little space.
Due to the small distances, the stars there can disrupt each other's orbits and even collide.
The newly discovered object could have emerged from such a collision.
“This is the most exotic binary pulsar discovered to date,” emphasizes co-author Tomas Tauris (Aalborg University).
“Its long and complex history pushes the limits of our imagination.”
Whether the enigmatic object is the most massive neutron star, the lightest black hole, or something else entirely, it will certainly continue to be studied in the future.
“We are not finished with this system yet,” confirms Arunima Dutta.
“Uncovering the true nature of the companion will be a turning point in our understanding of neutron stars, black holes, and anything else that might be lurking in the black hole’s mass gap.”
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