0
HomeSpace & AstronomyScientists found a New way to study the matter inside neutron...

Scientists found a New way to study the matter inside neutron stars

Astronomers have always wondered what neutron stars are made of, as the most extreme celestial bodies in the universe other than black holes.

In one study, scientists found a new way to determine the state of matter inside a neutron star: the peak spectral frequency of gravitational waves.

When a star is twice the mass of the Sun but compressed to the size of Manhattan, it’s a neutron star – one of the most surprisingly dense objects in the universe. It is tens of trillion times denser than any natural substance on earth.

And the interiors of such extraordinary objects can never be reproduced by experiments on Earth, so astronomers still don’t understand why neutron stars themselves, known as equations of state (EoS), are made.

You want to look inside these exotic objects, but they are too small and too far away to be viewed with standard telescopes.

Astronomers can only rely on other measurable indirect properties (like a neutron star’s mass and radius) to calculate EoS, just as they can use 2 sides of a right triangle to calculate the length of the hypotenuse.

Yet another problem arises – the radii of neutron stars are difficult to measure precisely.

That’s why astronomers have recently proposed a new alternative, using a quantity called the peak spectral frequency (f2) instead of the radius measurement.

When two neutron stars merge with a larger neutron star, the dense ball of stellar material left by the collision will release gravitational waves that can be detected by the LIGO and Virgo observatories when they reach Earth.

In principle, peak spectral frequencies can be calculated from gravitational wave signals, and these data could reveal the fundamental composition of neutron star matter.

Theoretical predictions suggest that extreme pressure in the core of the neutron star will “dissolve” the neutrons into particles called quarks, which represent a large amount of free quark matter within the neutron star.

Peak spectral frequencies can encode information about EoS, further clarifying whether quark theory really exists.

Post Gallery

SOURCEias.edu

Publish Date:

Mehmet S. Kaya
Mehmet S. Kayahttps://teknonel.com
Mehmet is one of the administrator of Teknonel. As a software developer, he loves to share his knowledge in related topics. He is highly familiar with the editorial process from the inception of an article idea, through the iterative process, publishing, and performance analysis as well as product reviews.

Follow us on Social Media!

12FansLike
15,848FollowersFollow
13FollowersFollow
676SubscribersSubscribe

Related Articles

Euclid Space Telescope Will Change View of Dark Universe

On May 1, 2023, the Euclid (Euclid) space telescope of the European Space Agency (ESA) arrived in Florida, USA by boat from Italy to...

Starship launch damaged the pad and exceeded expert expectations

SpaceX launched the Starship rocket for the first time a few days ago. In some respects, it was successful, but it also had to...

The night sky is full of black holes instead of stars

This is a seemingly ordinary starry sky photo (see the first picture), but it is a more special celestial body than luminous stars, that...

Truck-Sized Asteroid passed 3,600 kilometers closer than many satellites

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) stated that an asteroid the size of a truck passed over the southern tip of South America...

Explore More Articles