{ "id": 11260, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11260/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "NASA's Swift Catches an Anti-glitch from a Neutron Star", "description": "Using observations by NASA's Swift satellite, an international team of astronomers has identified an abrupt slowdown in the rotation of a neutron star. The discovery holds important clues for understanding some of the densest matter in the universe.While astronomers have witnessed hundreds of events, called glitches, associated with sudden increases in the spin of neutron stars, the sudden spin-down caught them off guard. A neutron star is the crushed core of a massive star that ran out of fuel, collapsed under its own weight, and exploded as a supernova. It's the closest thing to a black hole that astronomers can observe directly, compressing half a million times Earth's mass into a ball roughly the size of Manhattan Island. Matter within a neutron star is so dense that a teaspoonful would weigh about a billion tons on Earth. Neutron stars possess two other important traits. They spin rapidly, ranging from a few rpm to as many as 43,000, comparable to the blades of a kitchen blender, and they boast magnetic fields a trillion times stronger than Earth's. About two dozen neutron stars occasionally produce high-energy explosions that astronomers say require magnetic fields thousands of times stronger than expected. These exceptional objects, called magnetars, are routinely monitored by a McGill team led by Kaspi using Swift's X-Ray Telescope.Read the rest of the story here. || ", "release_date": "2013-05-29T13:00:00-04:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:52:07.787460-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 465955, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011200/a011260/Magnetar_Still_FINAL_1080.jpg", "filename": "Magnetar_Still_FINAL_1080.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "An artist's rendering of an outburst on an ultra-magnetic neutron star, also called a magnetar.Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center", "width": 1920, "height": 1080, "pixels": 2073600 }, "main_video": { "id": 2, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a000000/a001700/a001703/4559_Kepler_Neptune_Twitter_720.mp4", "filename": "4559_Kepler_Neptune_Twitter_720.mp4", "media_type": "Movie", "alt_text": "", "width": 1280, "height": 720, "pixels": 921600 }, "main_credits": { "Visualizations by": [ { "name": "Scott Wiessinger", "employer": "USRA" } ] }, "progress": "Complete", "media_groups": [ { "id": 345785, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11260/#media_group_345785", "widget": "Basic text with HTML", "title": "", "caption": "", "description": "Using observations by NASA's Swift satellite, an international team of astronomers has identified an abrupt slowdown in the rotation of a neutron star. The discovery holds important clues for understanding some of the densest matter in the universe.

While astronomers have witnessed hundreds of events, called glitches, associated with sudden increases in the spin of neutron stars, the sudden spin-down caught them off guard.

A neutron star is the crushed core of a massive star that ran out of fuel, collapsed under its own weight, and exploded as a supernova. It's the closest thing to a black hole that astronomers can observe directly, compressing half a million times Earth's mass into a ball roughly the size of Manhattan Island. Matter within a neutron star is so dense that a teaspoonful would weigh about a billion tons on Earth.

Neutron stars possess two other important traits. They spin rapidly, ranging from a few rpm to as many as 43,000, comparable to the blades of a kitchen blender, and they boast magnetic fields a trillion times stronger than Earth's.

About two dozen neutron stars occasionally produce high-energy explosions that astronomers say require magnetic fields thousands of times stronger than expected. These exceptional objects, called magnetars, are routinely monitored by a McGill team led by Kaspi using Swift's X-Ray Telescope.

Read the rest of the story here.", "items": [], "extra_data": {} }, { "id": 345786, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11260/#media_group_345786", "widget": "Single image", "title": "", "caption": "", "description": "An artist's rendering of an outburst on an ultra-magnetic neutron star, also called a magnetar.

Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center", "items": [ { "id": 308745, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 465955, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011200/a011260/Magnetar_Still_FINAL_1080.jpg", "filename": "Magnetar_Still_FINAL_1080.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "An artist's rendering of an outburst on an ultra-magnetic neutron star, also called a magnetar.Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center", "width": 1920, "height": 1080, "pixels": 2073600 } }, { "id": 308744, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 465954, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011200/a011260/Magnetar_Still_FINAL.jpg", "filename": "Magnetar_Still_FINAL.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "An artist's rendering of an outburst on an ultra-magnetic neutron star, also called a magnetar.Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center", "width": 3840, "height": 2160, "pixels": 8294400 } }, { "id": 308746, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 465956, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011200/a011260/Magnetar_Still_FINAL_web.jpg", "filename": "Magnetar_Still_FINAL_web.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "An artist's rendering of an outburst on an ultra-magnetic neutron star, also called a magnetar.Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center", "width": 320, "height": 180, "pixels": 57600 } }, { "id": 308747, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 465957, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011200/a011260/Magnetar_Still_FINAL_1080_thm.png", "filename": "Magnetar_Still_FINAL_1080_thm.png", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "An artist's rendering of an outburst on an ultra-magnetic neutron star, also called a magnetar.Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center", "width": 80, "height": 40, "pixels": 3200 } }, { "id": 308743, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 465953, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011200/a011260/Magnetar_Still_FINAL.tif", "filename": "Magnetar_Still_FINAL.tif", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "An artist's rendering of an outburst on an ultra-magnetic neutron star, also called a magnetar.Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center", "width": 3840, "height": 2160, "pixels": 8294400 } } ], "extra_data": {} }, { "id": 345787, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11260/#media_group_345787", "widget": "Single image", "title": "", "caption": "", "description": "An artist's rendering of an outburst on an ultra-magnetic neutron star, also called a magnetar, showing magnetic field lines.

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Credit: ESA/XMM-Newton/M. Sasaki et al.", "items": [ { "id": 308752, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 465962, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011200/a011260/CTB109_large.jpg", "filename": "CTB109_large.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "The magnetar 1E 2259+586 shines a brilliant blue-white in this false-color X-ray image of the CTB 109 supernova remnant, which lies about 10,000 light-years away toward the constellation Cassiopeia. CTB 109 is only one of three supernova remnants in our galaxy that are known to harbor a magnetar. X-rays at low, medium and high energies are respectively shown in red, green, and blue in this image created from observations acquired by the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton satellite in 2002. Credit: ESA/XMM-Newton/M. Sasaki et al.", "width": 1500, "height": 1688, "pixels": 2532000 } }, { "id": 308753, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 465963, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011200/a011260/CTB109_large_web.png", "filename": "CTB109_large_web.png", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "The magnetar 1E 2259+586 shines a brilliant blue-white in this false-color X-ray image of the CTB 109 supernova remnant, which lies about 10,000 light-years away toward the constellation Cassiopeia. CTB 109 is only one of three supernova remnants in our galaxy that are known to harbor a magnetar. X-rays at low, medium and high energies are respectively shown in red, green, and blue in this image created from observations acquired by the European Space Agency's XMM-Newton satellite in 2002. Credit: ESA/XMM-Newton/M. Sasaki et al.", "width": 320, "height": 360, "pixels": 115200 } } ], "extra_data": {} }, { "id": 345789, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11260/#media_group_345789", "widget": "Single image", "title": "", "caption": "", "description": "A neutron star is the densest object astronomers can observe directly, crushing half a million times Earth's mass into a sphere about 12 miles across, or similar in size to Manhattan Island, as shown in this illustration.

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This illustration compares the size of a neutron star to the area around Hannover, Germany.Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center", "width": 320, "height": 180, "pixels": 57600 } }, { "id": 308767, "type": "media", "extra_data": null, "title": null, "caption": null, "instance": { "id": 465977, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011200/a011260/Neutron_Star_Hannover2.tif", "filename": "Neutron_Star_Hannover2.tif", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "A neutron star is the densest object astronomers can observe directly, crushing half a million times Earth's mass into a sphere about 12 miles across. 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Watch to see how this unique event helps solve the longstanding puzzle of fast radio bursts observed in other galaxies.Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight CenterMusic: \"Jupiter's Eye\" from Universal Production MusicWatch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.Complete transcript available. || Magnetar_FRB_Still.jpg (1920x1080) [535.5 KB] || Magnetar_FRB_Still_searchweb.png (320x180) [65.5 KB] || Magnetar_FRB_Still_thm.png (80x40) [4.8 KB] || 13751_Magnetar_FRB_ProRes_1920x1080_2997.mov (1920x1080) [3.2 GB] || 13751_Magnetar_FRB_Best_1080.mp4 (1920x1080) [741.8 MB] || 13751_Magnetar_FRB_1080.mp4 (1920x1080) [237.4 MB] || 13751_Magnetar_FRB_Best_1080.webm (1920x1080) [25.7 MB] || Fast_Radio_Burst_SRT_Captions.en_US.srt [4.5 KB] || Fast_Radio_Burst_SRT_Captions.en_US.vtt [4.5 KB] || ", "release_date": "2020-11-04T11:00:00-05:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:44:32.489079-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 381635, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a013700/a013751/Magnetar_FRB_Still.jpg", "filename": "Magnetar_FRB_Still.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "On April 28, space- and ground-based observatories detected powerful, simultaneous X-ray and radio bursts from a source in our galaxy. Watch to see how this unique event helps solve the longstanding puzzle of fast radio bursts observed in other galaxies.Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight CenterMusic: \"Jupiter's Eye\" from Universal Production MusicWatch this video on the NASA Goddard YouTube channel.Complete transcript available.", "width": 1920, "height": 1080, "pixels": 2073600 } }, { "id": 11713, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/11713/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "Fermi Finds Hints of Starquakes in Magnetar 'Storm'", "description": "Astronomers analyzing data acquired by NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope during a rapid-fire \"storm\" of high-energy blasts in 2009 have discovered underlying signals related to seismic waves rippling throughout the host neutron star.The burst storm came from SGR J1550−5418, a neutron star with a super-strong magnetic field, also known as a magnetar. Located about 15,000 light-years away in the constellation Norma, the magnetar was quiet until October 2008, when it entered a period of eruptive activity that ended in April 2009. At times, the object produced hundreds of bursts in as little as 20 minutes, and the most intense explosions emitted more total energy than the sun does in 20 years. High-energy instruments on many spacecraft, including NASA's Swift and Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer, detected hundreds of gamma-ray and X-ray blasts.An examination of 263 individual bursts detected by Fermi's Gamma-ray Burst Monitor confirms vibrations in the frequency ranges previously only seen in rare giant flares from magnetars. Astronomers suspect these are twisting oscillations of the star where the crust and the core, bound by the magnetic field, vibrate together. In addition, a single burst showed an oscillation at a frequency never seen before and which scientists still do not understand.While there are many efforts to describe the interiors of neutron stars, scientists lack enough observational detail to choose between differing models. Neutron stars reach densities far beyond the reach of laboratories and their interiors may exceed the density of an atomic nucleus by as much as 10 times. Knowing more about how bursts shake up these stars will give theorists an important new window into understanding their internal structure.Magnetar Burst with Torsional Waves || ", "release_date": "2014-10-21T14:00:00-04:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:50:24.426843-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 450243, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a011700/a011713/Magnetar_Burst_Torsional_Waves_1080.jpg", "filename": "Magnetar_Burst_Torsional_Waves_1080.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "A rupture in the crust of a highly magnetized neutron star, shown here in an artist's rendering, can trigger high-energy eruptions. Fermi observations of these blasts include information on how the star's surface twists and vibrates, providing new insights into what lies beneath. The subtle pattern on the surface represents a twisting motion imparted to the magnetar by the explosion.Credit: NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center/S. Wiessinger", "width": 1920, "height": 1080, "pixels": 2073600 } }, { "id": 10858, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/10858/", "page_type": "Produced Video", "title": "Fermi Discovers Youngest Millisecond Pulsar", "description": "An international team of scientists using NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has discovered a surprisingly powerful millisecond pulsar that challenges existing theories about how these objects form. At the same time, another team has exploited improved analytical techniques to locate nine new gamma-ray pulsars in Fermi data.A pulsar, also called a neutron star, is the closest thing to a black hole astronomers can observe directly, crushing half a million times more mass than Earth into a sphere no larger than a city. This matter is so compressed that even a teaspoonful weighs as much as Mount Everest.Typically, millisecond pulsars are a billion years or more old, ages commensurate with a stellar lifetime. But in the Nov. 3 issue of Science, the Fermi team reveals a bright, energetic millisecond pulsar only 25 million years old.The object, named PSR J1823—3021A, lies within NGC 6624, a spherical assemblage of ancient stars called a globular cluster, one of about 160 similar objects that orbit our galaxy. The cluster is about 10 billion years old and lies about 27,000 light-years away toward the constellation Sagittarius.\"With this new batch of pulsars, Fermi now has detected more than 100, which is an exciting milestone when you consider that before Fermi's launch only seven of them were known to emit gamma rays,\" said Pablo Saz Parkinson, an astrophysicist at the Santa Cruz Institute for Particle Physics, University of California Santa Cruz. || ", "release_date": "2011-11-03T14:00:00-04:00", "update_date": "2023-05-03T13:53:29.855000-04:00", "main_image": { "id": 482468, "url": "https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/vis/a010000/a010800/a010858/01_Paolo_Fermi_newpulsars.jpg", "filename": "01_Paolo_Fermi_newpulsars.jpg", "media_type": "Image", "alt_text": "This plot shows the positions of nine new pulsars (magenta) discovered by Fermi and of an unusual millisecond pulsar (green) that Fermi data reveal to be the youngest such object known. With this new batch of discoveries, Fermi has detected more than 100 pulsars in gamma rays. Credit: Credit: AEI and NASA/DOE/Fermi LAT Collaboration", "width": 1692, "height": 1173, "pixels": 1984716 } } ], "sources": [], "products": [], "newer_versions": [], "older_versions": [], "alternate_versions": [] }