@cosmicrami.com It's me, the binary-neutron-star-merger-gravitational-wave tattoo guy, and lover of #NeutronStarWeek. My wife & I are actually moving from the US to AUS. We'll be in Sydney Sep/Nov and I'm trying to meet new people, can I buy you coffee or lunch sometime and hear about neutron stars?
Graphic showing a new version of the pulsar map which has a dark circle in the centre with lines of random length radially extending outwards in numerous directions. The lines themselves have a binary number encoded as perpendicular dashes towards the end of them. This is the binary translation of the pulsar's spin period. The title on the graphic reads: "Pulsar Map using Millisecond Pulsars (2025) by CosmicRami"
Graphic showing a new version of the pulsar map which has a dark circle in the centre with lines of random length radially extending outwards in numerous directions. The lines themselves have a binary number encoded as perpendicular dashes towards the end of them. This is the binary translation of the pulsar's spin period. The title on the graphic reads: "Pulsar Map using Millisecond Pulsars (2025) by CosmicRami". At the ends of each line is the pulsar name.
And so, over last few days, decided for #NeutronStarWeek to try my hand at building a new pulsar map, this time using millisecond pulsars!
Their period is still encoded in binary (scaled in microsec).
Here's the result! I think it turned out ok(ish). Data from PSRCAT.
Come get us, Aliens!
3/3 📡🔭
Venga, por la #NeutronStarWeek, aquí el post que escribí en 2020 sobre cómo usar púlsares como referencia para la navegación: darksapiens.blogspot.com/2020/11/nave...
I would jump for joy for #NeutronStarWeek but their gravity is too strong. I'm just going to pancake myself. 😆
I may just be a weird dude, but #NeutronStarWeek is definitely happening here. ALL HAIL NEUTRON STAR WEEK!
Regina George Mean Girls 'fetch' meme annotated with: "Everyone on Bluesky: Stop trying to make #NeutronStarWeek happen"
Me, randomly and unashamedly hammering the TL with #NeutronStarWeek posts trying to make it happen ....
An illustration of an ominous, green bat that emerges from the cosmos, pushing objects like galaxies and stars further apart into the void of outer space.
Happy #NeutronStarWeek!
Want to get a start on your astronomy-themed Halloween programming?
Check out the webinar and resources from NASA's Universe of Learning Science Briefing - Cosmic Chills: Vampire Stars, Black Widow Pulsars, and Dark Energy.
www.universe-of-learning.org/contents/eve...
Sooooo, is this a sign that the Universe approves of #NeutronStarWeek?! gcn.nasa.gov/circulars/41... what do we think @ligo.org @egovirgo.bsky.social ?
Please let this be a binary neutron star merger. PLEASE 🙏
gracedb.ligo.org/superevents/...
and I highly recommend checking out these vids from @sevenrasmussen.com on the insides of neutron stars, the forbidden yet delicious varieties of nuclear pasta, and more!
www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8BrPeP9/
www.tiktok.com/t/ZP8BrHxgE/
#NeutronStarWeek
Ever heard of the forbidden nuclear pasta?
Just one spoonful and it will crush you like someone dropping Mount Everest on your head.
The insides of neutron stars have *a lot* of mass (~1.4 times the Sun) squeezed into a tiny space (~20 km across).
Soul crushing. Literally.
#NeutronStarWeek
So, what's inside neutron stars?
We're not sure!
By using radio telescopes to time pulsars, X-ray telescopes to watch hotspots, and getting accurate distances of these objects, there are models (equations of state of matter)
www.spaceaustralia.com/feature/clos...
📸 NASA SVS
#NeutronStarWeek
Mmmmm...nuclear pasta....
#NeutronStarWeek!
For #NeutronStarWeek I would like to remind everyone of Nuclear Pasta as a possible state of matter inside the ludicrously pressurized insides of neutron stars.
But we must also ask: does the standard model not also mandate the existence of Nuclear Anti-Pasta?
I love #NeutronStarWeek! I've always said that neutron stars are way cooler than black holes bc there's extreme physics without any pesky event horizons. Take that, black holes!
These pulsar systems allow us to put General Relativity to the test! ✨
How?!
By seeing if the decay of the orbit matches what the decay predicted to be due to the emission of gravitational waves.
And guess what, THEY DO! 😎
⬇️ That plot is the orbital decay of PSR J0737-3039A/B
#NeutronStarWeek
Pulsar Kitty returns for #NeutronStarWeek
I mean what could be better than one cosmic kitty lighthouse?!
TWO COSMIC KITTY LIGHTHOUSES! 😂
DYK there's only one confirmed double pulsar system? PSR J0737-3039A/B
spaceaustralia.com/feature/unve...
@cosmicrami.com @astromelow.bsky.social
Apparently it’s #NeutronStarWeek, i.e the things I study for my day (and sometimes night) job!
More accurately I look at pulsars, which are neutron stars that are doing interesting things. Like emitting beams of radio waves from above their magnetic poles.
#Astronomy #RadioAstronomy
@minouette.bsky.social It's #NeutronStarWeek!
a plot that shows years on the x-axis and the shift in periastron time (or decay of orbital period) on the y-axis. Below is a sub-plot showing years on the x-axis and residuals on the y-axis. The data follows an arcing curve, starting from the top left and extending to the bottom right like a half-parabola. This plot is reflective of a model that General Relativity states that the orbit of two massive objects should decay over time when they are close, and the data points reflect this almost perfectly.
Take a look at this for #NeutronStarWeek
There's a system that features a neutron star + pulsar. They orbit a common centre of mass. Einstein's General Relativity (GR) tells us that they should inspiral and radiate gravitational waves. GR prediction is red line.
Blue data points are data!
📸 MPIfR
Awesome tat!
Shared for #NeutronStarWeek!
I didn't know it was #NeutronStarWeek! Check out my tattoo that shows the gravitational wave signal we detect here on Earth when 2 unequal mass neutron stars merge into a larger neutron star. It's also a ruler!
So what’s a pulsar? And what is a neutron star? They’re actually the same thing! All pulsars are neutron stars — they just beam radiation at us periodically (they ‘pulse’).
Pulsars are neutron stars acting as giant disco balls 🪩
#NeutronStarWeek
www.spaceaustralia.com/feature/milk...
My very first research project (back in 2017, supervised by @duncankgalloway.bsky.social) involved searching for X-ray pulsations from Sco X-1 ✨
I wrote a paper on this during my PhD: academic.oup.com/mnras/articl...
TL;DR? Here's a summary: spaceaustralia.com/news/cosmic-... 😄
#NeutronStarWeek
"LMXB" = Low Mass X-ray Binary.
The diagram below illustrates the anatomy of an LMXB with a #NeutronStar. One of my favourite LMXBs is Scorpius X-1 💚
DYK Sco X-1 is the second brightest X-ray source in our sky?! It is only defeated by our Sun ☀️
#NeutronStarWeek
Wiki has a little section on the sub-types of neutron stars if you want to explore further: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutron...
There's a bunch of them, known as the Magnificent Seven, which are relatively nearby to us (but far enough!):
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mag...
#NeutronStarWeek
Plot showing period on x-axis and surface magnetic field on y-axis. On the plot are different shaded regions representing the different kinds of neutron stars.
infographoch showing three different typs of Neutron stars incl. magnetar, pulsars and magnetar-pulsars.
DYK there is a whole zoo of neutron stars!
Some are slow, some fast. Some emit in radio, some in high-energy. Some are in binaries, some are isolated. Some have very strong magnetic fields, others not as strong.
It's a zoo out there!
📸 arxiv.org/abs/1302.0869 / NASA JPL-Caltech
#NeutronStarWeek
Any astro folks working in the models for the equations of state of matter for neutron stars wanna tackle this one? (or maybe you have an article where you have already covered this?)
#NeutronStarWeek
