Planets, stars, and other celestial bodies awe scientists and cause them to question the laws of physics and astronomy. So, what space objects defy logic and contradict our current understanding of the universe? Prepare to discover how a star can emit smoke rings, how black holes can eject unwanted space bodies, what happens when stars feed off each other, and how stars can continue to exist after they explode. The MeerKAT radio telescope detected a strange and unique signal in the Vela-X 1 region of the sky at the beginning of 2022. Dead neutron stars have found their final resting place 1,300 light-years from Earth. Previously, no star pulses or other activity had ever been observed there. So, what strange and mysterious object was transmitting radio signals from a dead region of space? Scientists determined that it was the neutron star PSR J0901-4046.
Neutron stars are known to spin extremely fast. Their rotation times range from 1.4 milliseconds to 30 seconds. However, as they age, their spin slows, and as a result, they stop emitting radio bursts. However, this star can take up to 76 seconds to complete one revolution and still produce pulses. In fact, there are seven different kinds of them! Scientists claim they’ve never seen anything like it. The weakened PSR J0901-4046 is nearly out of fuel. Its signals last about 300 milliseconds, or 0.5% of the star’s rotation period. So astronomers were fortunate that a radio beam crossed the Earth for a brief moment and they were able to detect it. PSR J0901-4046 may belong to a rare class of ultra-long-period magnetars or stars with extremely strong magnetic fields, according to one theory. If this is the case, the star represents the beginning of a new class of neutron stars, and there could be a lot of them out there. But that isn’t the only star that scientists are interested in.
S5-HVS1, a hypervelocity star traveling through the Milky Way at a blistering 6,000,000 kilometers per hour [3,700,000 miles per hour], is only 29,000 light-years from Earth in the constellation of Grus. This is roughly ten times faster than the majority of stars in our galaxy. So, what happened to this star to cause it to be shot across the galaxy at such breakneck speed? Researchers discovered the star S5-HSV1 was ejected from the center of the Milky Way, where the Sagittarius A* black hole sits, by tracing it back in time. This prompted scientists to consider a paradoxical thought. Once an object is close enough to a black hole, its insane gravity is known to pull celestial bodies inside. However, it has been discovered that such black hole monsters are capable of slingshotting celestial bodies through space at incredible speeds. Something similar to this could have happened to S5-HSV1. Previously, the star orbited another star as part of a binary system, but they were too close to Sagittarius A*.
The companion star was captured by the monster black hole’s gravity, and S5-HSV1 was ejected at thousands of kilometers per second. Scientists believe the event happened around five million years ago. However, there are other celebrities who exhibit insane behavior and defy logic. Tabby’s star in the constellation Cygnus, KIC 8462852, stands out for its brightness. The star is approximately 1,470 light-years away from Earth. It is slightly larger, hotter, and brighter than the Sun. Tabby’s star has become one of the most resonant cosmic stories in recent years. The star rose to prominence in 2015 after the Kepler Space Telescope detected a decrease in its luminosity over a period of several days. The brightness of the star dropped by about 20% before gradually increasing. Furthermore, Tabby’s star has consistently experienced much fainter, but long-lasting dimming. Such phenomena have never been observed in other stars of similar size to the Sun. Extraterrestrial civilization believers immediately began discussing the megastructure of a distant, highly evolved civilization. According to their story, alien intelligent life periodically steals energy from the star for their own purposes, dimming its light. However, recent research from NASA’s Spitzer and Swift missions has disproved this theory. In the infrared spectrum, astronomers observed a smaller dimming of Tabby’s star.
And aliens had absolutely nothing to do with it! Scientists have proposed their explanation for the star’s unusual behavior. Long and weak periods of low light could be caused by the uneven movement of the dust cloud around the star. When an object larger than a dust particle passes in front of the star, it darkens it. According to researchers, the dust surrounding Tabby’s star may be too small to evaporate into space. However, it is not large enough to block the entire spectrum of light waves. These parameters are met by particles with a diameter of no more than one tenth of an inch, or a few micrometers. According to the researchers’ calculations, the cloud’s rotation period is around 700 days. They haven’t been able to pinpoint the exact source of the dust so far. It could be dust from a swarm of passing comets, debris from planetary collisions, or interstellar matter particles. The legendary Tabby’s star’s story is far from over, and scientists will continue to investigate it. Who knows what surprises it may have in store for us in the future. But stars aren’t just fast or bright…more!
there’s This is HD 140283, a star 190 light-years away from Earth in the constellation Libra. It was studied in 2000 in an attempt to determine its age as the [https://youtu.be/oUTYG6f2gAQ] Methuselah star. The resulting age was astounding: 16 billion years. But, given that the Universe is only 13.8 billion years old, how is that even possible? Let us know in the comments if you’d like to hear the full story about this star. Something strange is also happening to another Milky Way star [HD 5314]. Scientists discovered a debris disk surrounding the star using the ALMA telescope. It’s not unusual for stars to have debris from the formation of their systems orbiting them. No other star, however, has a debris disc with such a complex structure. HD 53143 is a yellow dwarf star with a mass of approximately 80% that of the Sun and a luminosity of 70% that of the Sun. It’s in the Carina constellation, 60 light-years away from Earth. The star is young, only a billion years old. It’s not surprising that HD 53143 is still encircled by a disk of rock debris. As these rocks move, they collide with one another, crashing on impact and turning to dust. Such disks are typically ring-shaped and resemble the Kuiper Belt.
This one, on the other hand, has a completely unique “crown” or ellipse shape. This isn’t the only odd and unusual feature of the star. During subsequent observations, astronomers discovered that it has an additional inner disk that is offset or tilted relative to the outer disk. The larger disk should gradually attract, destroy, and absorb the smaller one, which is unusual. Scientists have concluded that there is only one possible scenario. If there is a hidden object in the system, its gravity may allow the disks to keep their distance. This object, however, would have to be at least a large exoplanet. To put their theory to the test, astronomers will have to thoroughly search the entire vicinity of HD 53143 for an unknown space body, if one exists. Let’s go to the constellation Hydra to see another star’s unusual behavior. V Hydrae, a star 1,300 light-years away from Earth, is nearing the end of its life. Researchers recently discovered the dying star putting on an incredible show, ejecting six rotating smoke rings and streams of plasma fireworks into space. It sounds lovely, but scientists had no idea why the star was acting this way. It was once the size of the Sun, but as it aged, it grew into a red giant.
More than 90% of solar-mass stars evolve along this path. However, V Hydrae is the only one that, in its final stages, emits gas rings similar to smoke rings. And a new ring appears around this carbon-rich star every few hundred years. It continues to grow slowly over time. A thick veil of dust has long obscured all six smoke rings, which are approximately 2,100 years old. They were extremely difficult to detect, but in 2022, the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array telescope detected the rings using very short radio waves of only 1 millimeter in length. The telescope then picked up on something even more intriguing. These are beautiful hourglass-shaped gas bubbles that are located in opposite directions from the star. They were formed by the gas jets that V Hydrae ejected at breakneck speeds. The plasma streams were picked up by the cosmic wind, which blew at insane speeds of up to 800,000 kilometers [500,000 miles] per hour in two opposite directions. This hurricane eventually shaped the gas jets into an hourglass. Large plasma outbursts occur every eight years or so.
Scientists have been particularly taken aback by such plasma fountains. There should be none under any circumstances. Such jets require a tremendous amount of energy to be released. So, where does that energy come from in the dying star? One theory is that a’space vampire’ disguised as the star’s good neighbor is involved in the story. This ejection mechanism could be influenced by an invisible companion star orbiting close to V Hydrae. A portion of the gas is sucked into space, where it forms an incredible hourglass-shaped structure. However, the dying V Hydrae’s display pales in comparison to what the star from the Eta Carinae binary system did. It exploded with tremendous force about 170 years ago. For a short time, it was the second brightest star in the night sky. Then a miracle occurred. The star emerged from the fire unscathed! The light echo of this event was discovered in 2003 by astronomers using telescopes at Chile’s Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory. The situation gradually became clearer as the investigation into the cosmic catastrophe progressed. However, scientists now believe that there were not two, but three stars in the system prior to the explosion.
A massive star, let’s call it star A, stood in the center of the system. A smaller star – B – was next to it. Finally, on the outskirts, there was a tiny star – C. Star A began to lose its shell as it grew older. And star B quickly began to peel away layer after layer of its neighbor, consuming its gas and matter. As a result, star A became a helium core. The gravitational balance of forces in the system shifted as a result. Star B grew larger at the expense of its neighbor’s shell, pushing A away from the center and closer to star C. C eventually collided with B, resulting in an explosion. It was extremely powerful, but not powerful enough to destroy the massive star B. Instead, the small C star was shattered. As a result, the system became binary, with only A and B remaining. Using computer simulations and the new James Webb Space Telescope, scientists will continue to look for evidence in favor of this hypothesis. What new phenomena do you think the James Webb Space Telescope will discover?
