Astronomers have discovered a dead star that appears to lack an atmosphere, and it looks like it has a solid surface.
The study about the body published in the journal Science was completely unexpected, according to the professor who co-authored it. There would be an atmosphere. Water may turn to ice if the star's gas reaches a tipping point. The star has a powerful magnetic field.
The star in question is referred to as a magnetar. It's just a term for neutron stars, which are the dense remaining cores of massive stars that exploded as supernovae.
Magnetic fields are the strongest in the universe. This particular one, dubbed 4U 0142+61 and located in the Cassiopeia constellation, was subject to a new analysis in which scientists examined its X-ray emissions, and found something odd: a far smaller amount of light than would be expected of a normal star's
What is the end result? It does not seem to have one. The team found a "wiggle"-like angle of polarization that suggested that the dead star had a "solid crust."
Even though a thin carbon atmosphere was detected on one of the stars by Harvard and NASA in 2009, it is not certain if other stars have atmospheres at all.
We have to wonder for now.
Astronomers are puzzled by a very strange object in deep space.
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