Fast-spinning neutron star smashes speed limit
The fastest-spinning neutron star ever found has been discovered in a crowded star cluster near the centre of the Milky Way, a new study reveals. The star rotates 716 times per second – faster than some theories predict is possible – and therefore may force researchers to revise their models. Neutron stars form when a massive star explodes at the end of its life and leaves behind a super-dense, spinning ball of neutrons. These stellar corpses emit intense beams of radio waves from their poles and are called pulsars. Most pulsars rotate just a few times per second, but some spin hundreds of times faster. These so-called millisecond pulsars whip around so quickly because they are thought to have stripped mass – and angular momentum – from companion stars at some point in their histories. Astronomers led by Jason Hessels of McGill University in Montreal, Canada, used the 100-metre Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia, US, to clock the newly discovered pulsar at 716 rotations ...