Thursday, February 24, 2011

Superfluid Core of Neutron Star Formed 100 Years "Ago"




Make that 100 apparent  years ago, as Cas A the new neutron star is 11,000 light years away. Amazing isn't it what Astronomers can figure out from photographs alone?

Superfluidity, Superconductivity, Lasers and quantum Hall effect are the 4 ways we can see the quantum world here in the size range of the Macroscopic. Together they represent the largest field of Nobel Prizes in Physics.

Here's the amazing thing, from photography alone Astronomers have deduced the CORE of this recently created Neutron Star is in Superfluid form. You can read the details here at Space.com and here at Universe Today.

In the photograph of Cas A above, "a composite of X-rays from Chandra (red, green, and blue) and optical  data from Hubble (gold) of Cassiopeia A, the remains of a massive star  that exploded in a supernova. Inset: A cutout of the interior of the  neutron star, where densities increase from the crust (orange) to the  core (red) and finally to the region where the "superfluid" exists  (inner red ball)."
                              CREDIT: X-ray: NASA/CXC/xx; Optical: NASA/STScI; Illustration: NASA/CXC/M.Weiss                                            

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