Objects zoom through space at unfathomable speeds, but one spinning dying star 27,400 light-years away might just be a record setter. It’s a neutron star and is part of a binary pair in system 4U 1820-30.
00:00Objects zoom through space at unfathomable speeds, but one spinning dying star 27,400 light-years away might just be a record-setter.
00:12It's a neutron star and is part of a binary pair in system 4U1820-30, and it rotates on its axis at an insane 716 times every second.
00:23For reference, our central star, the Sun, has an equatorial rotational period of 24 days.
00:29The astrophysicists who discovered the star's high spin rate say if confirmed, this will be one of the fastest spinning objects ever found.
00:36Only bested by Pulsar, PSR, J1748-2446AD, another neutron that spins at 730 rotations per second.
00:45Neutron stars are stellar bodies at the end of their lives, with their collapsed cores creating massively dense fast spinning objects.
00:52Those that become neutron stars are usually 1.1 to 2.3 times the mass of the Sun, but only around 12 miles across.
00:59And since 4U1820-30 orbits so close to its binary pair, with a joint orbit lasting only 11.4 minutes, the fast spinning star is likely siphoning material and getting even denser.
01:10When it gets too dense and hot, it will eventually release a burst of thermonuclear energy, becoming 100,000 times brighter than the Sun.
01:18Meaning it could soon be classified as the fastest spinning X-ray pulsar ever discovered.
