Rare Lone Neutron Star Found Nearby

F4_W_weasel sends us to the BBC for news of the eighth lone neutron star ever discovered. It has no associated supernova remnant, binary companion, or radio pulsations. It's in our stellar neighborhood, at most 1,000 light years away. The object emits all its radiation (as far as wa can detect with current instruments) in X rays. The object is called Calvera, after the bad guy in The Magnificent Seven — which is itself the collective nickname for the seven such objects previously known.

Dragon's Egg

[Gospodin]

When I saw the title I was hoping for a Robert L. Forward Dragon's Egg [wikipedia.org] type of thing. But apparently it isn't quite that nearby.

Re:Raw data

[networkBoy]

Lots, much of it, and many respectively.
Once MIT gets their glass plate collection on-line, expect even more discoveries.
-nB

Re:Raw data

[mbone]

Many petabytes of astronomical data have been collected. It is a good bet that all or almost all of it have been analyzed for some purpose (whatever paid for the
data collection), but there is no limit to the ways that things can be analyzed (did it change strenght with time ? Is it in other catalogs ? Is it stronger
in some wavelength than usual ? etc. etc.) So, in that sense the surface has hardly been scratched and this work will literally never be completed.

There is lots of room for amateurs to make discoveries in these "virtual telescopes," and you can expect some cool discoveries to come from guys running software in their basement.

Re:How certain are they about the radio noise?

[archen]

"I think the "new discovery" part is the "without supernova remnant". Aren't most pulsars embedded in their supernova remnants?"

While true I don't think it's exactly all that interesting that you'd find a neutron star without the remnants. There are many things that could have happened to eject such an object out of its normal position. Take a binary star system for example. If one star lost significant mass, and another gained (mass blown off of its partner) than an irregular orbit would cause the first to slingshot. That's one theory anyway.

Re:Am I just being apathetic?

[rerutledge]

Here's one way it *may* matter: The best explanation we have for this object, at this point, is that it is a nearby neutron star. If it is spinning rapidly (and that's an if -- we don't know how rapidly it is spinning) and it is not a perfect sphere, then it can be giving off gravitational radiation -- if, in fact, graviational radiation exists as predicted. The fact that it's nearby would make it easier to detect such radiation -- so the object is a potential target for existing gravitational wave detectors, such as LIGO. But that only matters if theories of gravity are of interest to you.