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Q&A: Supernova Remnants and Neutron Stars
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Q:
I've read the material at http://chandra.harvard.edu/photo/2002/g541/index.html
and am wondering if there is a diameter calculated for the size of the neutron
star? the point-like source? Rotating at 7 times per second it wouldn't
have to be large, hardly bigger than Earth, to have an equatorial linear
velocity of the speed of light, and at any distance, for us to be seeing
it at all it would almost have to be certainly at least the size of the
Earth? What i'm thinking might explain some of the other phenomenon as well.?
A:
Your statement that an Earth-size star would disintegrate if it rotated as
fast as 7 times a second is correct. This was one of the early arguments
as
to why pulsars had to be neutron stars, which have a diameter of about 20
kilometers. We cannot resolve the size of the neutron star, but infer it
from the details of the radiation we observe and theory. In the case of
the
pulsar in G54.1 the energy output is due to a power generated by its rapidly
rotating magnetic field.
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