Astronomers Discovered Bright Dead Star

Astronomers accidentally discovered the most luminous pulsar ever; a bright dead star. After measuring the dead star’s output, they found it was outputting as much energy as 10 million suns.

“You might think of this pulsar as the ‘Mighty Mouse’ of stellar remnants,” said Fiona Harrison, the NuSTAR principal investigator at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. “It has all the power of a black hole, but with much less mass.”

Astronomers aren’t sure why the pulsar is so bright, but will continue to study in hopes of learning how common or uncommon this kind of pulsar is. The discovery kind of shakes up what theorist knew about black holes and ultra luminous x-rays, underlining how little we really know about the universe out there.

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