NASA’s NuStar Mission Finds Rare Pulsar that Pumps Out the Energy of 10 Million Suns
This animation shows a neutron star—the core of a star that exploded in a massive supernova. This particular neutron star is known as a pulsar because it sends out rotating beams of X-rays that sweep past Earth like lighthouse beacons. (NASA/JPL-Caltech) NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) mission recently made a remarkable discovery that could […]
Rhythmic Light Pulses Help Astronomers Accurately Measure Medium Sized Black Hole
Astronomers have calculated that there may be about 100 million black holes in the galaxy. And they mostly fall into two sizes… stellar and supermassive. The size difference has to do with how much mass they contain versus that of our own sun or solar mass. For some time now, astronomers have also theorized that […]