A new study published in NASA’s ‘The Astrophysical Journal’ has confirmed that the neutron star known as M82 X-2 is too bright for its size, and therefore, breaks a physical law known as the Eddington limit.
According to Live Science, the Eddington limit is a law determining how bright something of a given size can be. If something breaks the Eddington limit, it is expected to blow itself up.
This appears not to be the case when it comes to objects known as ‘ultraluminous X-ray sources’ (ULX’s) like M82 X-2 which can shine millions of times brighter than our sun. ULXs, according to a recent NASA statement, ‘regularly exceed (the Eddington limit) by 100 to 500 times, leaving scientists puzzled’.
Prior theories have tended to suggest that ULXs only appear to break the Eddington limit, but that, in fact, their extreme brightness is an optical illusion. However, the recently published study on M82 X-2 has confirmed that the neutron star is ‘definitely too bright’.
Researchers involved in the study have tentatively suggested that M82 X-2 is able to shine as brightly as it does without exploding because its intense magnetic field (about 100 trillion times stronger than the Earth’s) may change the shape of its atoms, allowing them to stick together as it gets brighter and brighter.
In a statement, lead study author, Matteo Bachetti, from Cagliari Astronomical Observatory in Italy, said of the study that it highlights the ‘beauty of astronomy’ in that researchers were able to ‘see the effects of these incredibly strong magnetic fields that we could never reproduce on Earth with current technology’, adding that sometimes ‘we have to wait for the universe to show us its secrets’.
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