- #1
gonzo
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I have a question about the time scale for a certain type occurance causing a neturon star to explode, and a related question about the conditions of this occurrance.
If you have a binary star system with one of the stars being a neutron star, I read that if the other star sucks off enough mass from the neutron star then the NS won't have enough mass to hold itself together and will explode violently from internal pressure.
I'm interested first in what would be required in terms of orbits and relative masses for the other star to suck off mass from the neutron star instead of the other way around (thus forming, eventually, a black hole in the opposite process).
And also over what kind of time scale this might occur. By time scale I mean assume you had a sattelite probe in the system watching both stars and collecting data. What is the time evolution of the process starting with when the probe stats to notice matter flowing from the neutron star to the partner star?
As a side question, will this flow of mass give off extra energy? I assume the gas will be super heated and so give off high energy photons (Xray and higher, like the neutron star itself?), or will it glow more in the visible?
Given how fast a neutron star is likely to be rotating, how would this even "look"? Would the mass spiral out from teh star in ever larger turns until it reached the partners star sucking it up?
Thanks.
If you have a binary star system with one of the stars being a neutron star, I read that if the other star sucks off enough mass from the neutron star then the NS won't have enough mass to hold itself together and will explode violently from internal pressure.
I'm interested first in what would be required in terms of orbits and relative masses for the other star to suck off mass from the neutron star instead of the other way around (thus forming, eventually, a black hole in the opposite process).
And also over what kind of time scale this might occur. By time scale I mean assume you had a sattelite probe in the system watching both stars and collecting data. What is the time evolution of the process starting with when the probe stats to notice matter flowing from the neutron star to the partner star?
As a side question, will this flow of mass give off extra energy? I assume the gas will be super heated and so give off high energy photons (Xray and higher, like the neutron star itself?), or will it glow more in the visible?
Given how fast a neutron star is likely to be rotating, how would this even "look"? Would the mass spiral out from teh star in ever larger turns until it reached the partners star sucking it up?
Thanks.