By: Haris Ahmad[1]
Our universe is a boundless place that is impossible for our brains to wholly understand or for our eyes to completely see. This is not only because it is so large but, also because it is expanding at ever-increasing rates. Therefore, we are only limited to see the part of the universe which we call the observable universe. According to current estimates, the observable universe is about 93 billion light-years across.
This enormous size means that if any event takes place at one side of the observable universe, the light from that event would take 93 billion years to reach to the other side for any extraterrestrial intelligent life to see. However, that’s not all. The universe is much bigger than that. The observable universe is so tiny in comparison to the whole universe that, it is as if you place a light bulb in the middle of the dwarf planet Pluto (2300 km in diameter).
You see, the whole explanation I just gave was to give you an idea of how enormous the universe is. Therefore, it is home to unimaginable types and numbers of celestial objects. Among these, the most common to us are planets, stars, moons, asteroids, black holes, etc. However, among this vacuum exists many other types of celestial objects that are extremely fascinating.
Hence, in this blog, I will explain my favorite type of celestial objects that many of you may not know about. These celestial objects are known as Pulsars. These objects are neutron stars and are the densest in the universe. One spoon of Pulsar mass is equal to the mass of Mount Everest.
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| https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/nasa-continues-to-study-pulsars-50-years-after-their-chance-discovery/ |
A 12-mile pulsar can weigh as much as 1.5x our Sun which is 1392680 km large. Moreover, these objects mostly exist in the most beautiful places in the universe, those places are, Supernovas.
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| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supernova |
Pulsars are rapidly rotating neutron stars that emit pulses of radio waves and electromagnetic radiation at the rates of up to one thousand pulses per second. The speed of the spinning of these monsters is just mindboggling. For example, the sun spins at a speed of 1.997 km/s while Pulsars spin at the speed of 70,000 km/s.
Now, let's talk about how these monsters are born. If you have read my Solar System related blogs, you may know that stars like our own Sun produce energy using a process called thermonuclear fusion. This means that it fuses two nuclei to produce a larger single nucleus and the main fuel for this process is Hydrogen and Helium. Therefore, one day the fuel has to end and when a star 4 to 8 times the mass of our Sun comes to the end of its life and runs low on fuel, it can no longer fight back against the gravity from its core and collapses, producing an explosion to become a Supernova (A luminous stellar explosion). This explosion is so strong that the whole shell of the Star is completely blown into pieces and the Protons and Electrons in the core fuse together due to the influence of immense gravitational forces. Therefore, the star ends up becoming a tightly packed ball of neutrons and becomes a neutron star. Over time, this ball of neutrons gets compressed more and more and starts spinning faster and faster. Physics calls this process, ‘The Conservation of Angular Momentum’. The outcome of this process is a neutron star that spins as fast as hundreds of times per second and this star is arguably the smoothest object in the universe too because the gravity aligns the neutrons together in a smooth sphericle shape. This neutron star now has so much mass and energy, that it starts shooting jets of energetic particles from its poles and there you have it, a Pulsar.
For years, scientists were muddled as to what is this object was, emitting light in the form for X-rays and blinking in constant intervals. However, after decades of deep research, they found out that they were the beams of light emitted by neutron stars that pointed straight towards Earth in constant intervals. This was just like a lighthouse’s beam that you can see passing in front of you.
[1] Haris Ahmad is currently studying in 9th grade (O levels) in The City School Islamabad.
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