Theory A Example of Millipulsar Binary

The J1749 binary pulsar system. picture courtesy NASA/GSFC

After they have been affected by a supernova event, a star may end like a neutron star, which is a star with 2 to 3 solar masses, a radius under 10 km, and with a teaspoon of such a star weighing 4 billion tons or as a pulsar. A pulsar is a neutron star rotating swiftly and emitting high-intensity radio radiation bursts from its both poles. 'Millipulsars' are pulsars the rotation of which is extremely important

In the vast bestiary of miscellaneous objects lying in the Universe and our own Milky-Way Galaxy, the binary system located 22,000 light-years ago is separated by 1.22 million miles (1,96 million kilometers), with a revolution period of 8.8 hours only, as it conjugates a millisecond pulsar with a star of the Sun is a amazing sight. The pulsar's intense X-rays makes the star's outer layers puff up to make it about 20 percent larger than a star of its mass and age should be as the system undergoes outbursts when instabilities in the accretion disk allow some of the gas to crash onto the neutron star. The pulsar's powerful magnetic field directs infalling gas onto the star's magnetic poles. This means that the energy release occurs in hot spots that rotate with the neutron star, producing fast X-ray pulses

The J1749 pulsar is spinning 518 times a second, which is a city-sized sphere rotating as fast as the blades of a kitchen blender! The pulsar influence also makes the star's surface especially disturbed and stormy. The transition between a X-ray binary and a radio pulsar occurs like a neutron star pulls matter from the companion star via a disk surrounding it. During this so-called accretion phase, the system is described as a low-mass X-ray binary. Spinning material in the disk falls onto the neutron star, increasing its rotation rate. The transfer of matter eventually slows down and the remaining material is swept away by the whirling magnetic field of the neutron star as a millisecond radio pulsar forms. The complete evolution of a low-mass X-ray binary into a millisecond pulsar should happen over several billion years, but in the course of this evolution, the system might switch rapidly between these two states on a time scale shorter than expected, maybe only a few days