{"id":28206,"date":"2022-01-20T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2022-01-20T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/?p=28206&preview=true&preview_id=28206"},"modified":"2022-02-02T15:08:56","modified_gmt":"2022-02-02T15:08:56","slug":"witnessing-a-neutron-stars-birth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/2022\/01\/20\/witnessing-a-neutron-stars-birth\/","title":{"rendered":"Witnessing a neutron star’s birth"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Was the blue outburst the creation of a superdense star?<\/p>\n\n

\"\"
The mysterious blue flash, AT2018cow, may hold vital clues into the birth of a neutron star<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n

Astronomers may have <\/strong>caught the moment when a supernova became a neutron star, perhaps even a black hole.<\/p>\n\n

In June 2018, telescopes around the world homed in on a flash of blue light 100 times brighter than a supernova, called AT2018cow (or \u2018The Cow\u2019 for short), coming from a galaxy 200 million lightyears away. Follow-up observations found the object flashed out X-rays every 4.4 milliseconds, which suggests an object 1,000kmwide and makes a neutron star or black hole the most likely cause. It\u2019s thought one of these formed in a collapsing star, then devoured the material around it to generate an energy burst.<\/p>\n\n

\u201cWe have likely discovered the birth of a compact object in a supernova,\u201d says lead author Dheeraj Pasham, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. \u201cThis happens in normal supernovae, but we haven\u2019t seen it before because it\u2019s such a messy process. We think this new evidence opens possibilities for finding baby black holes or baby neutron stars.\u201d www.mit.edu<\/a><\/p>\n\n

Photo: NATIONAL ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY OF JAPAN<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Was the blue outburst the creation of a superdense star?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5420,"featured_media":28209,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ub_ctt_via":"","purple_page_number":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_page_number":"","purple_seq_number":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_seq_number":"","purple_source_article":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_source_article":"","purple_source_issue":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_source_issue":"February-2022","purple_external_id":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_external_id":"February-2022-06177f2a-f8d3-47c7-97f1-43e4ba082279","purple_issue_code":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_issue_code":"|0000086549||","purple_android_product":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_android_product":"com.im.skyatnight.201","purple_ios_product":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_ios_product":"com.im.skyatnight.201","purple_web_product":"","purple_custom_meta_purple_web_product":"","purple_publication_id":"","purple_migrated":"","kt_blocks_editor_width":""},"categories":[19],"tags":[],"featured_image_src":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/01\/36E50R4M1P0MFFG5LU1PL2208W50-1.jpg","author_info":{"display_name":"maya.hack@immediate.co.uk","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/author\/maya-hackimmediate-co-uk\/"},"acf":{"readingTimeMinutes":"< 1","apple_news_title":""},"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/01\/36E50R4M1P0MFFG5LU1PL2208W50-1.jpg",2048,1535,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/01\/36E50R4M1P0MFFG5LU1PL2208W50-1-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/01\/36E50R4M1P0MFFG5LU1PL2208W50-1-300x225.jpg",300,225,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/01\/36E50R4M1P0MFFG5LU1PL2208W50-1-768x576.jpg",768,576,true],"large":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/01\/36E50R4M1P0MFFG5LU1PL2208W50-1-1024x768.jpg",800,600,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/01\/36E50R4M1P0MFFG5LU1PL2208W50-1-1536x1151.jpg",1536,1151,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/uploads\/sites\/77\/2022\/01\/36E50R4M1P0MFFG5LU1PL2208W50-1.jpg",2048,1535,false]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"maya.hack@immediate.co.uk","author_link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/author\/maya-hackimmediate-co-uk\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Was the blue outburst the creation of a superdense star?","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28206"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5420"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=28206"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28736,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28206\/revisions\/28736"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/28209"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=28206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=28206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbcskyatnight\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=28206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}