pulsar’s cosmic wind tagged posts

XRISM catches a pulsar’s cosmic wind—and sees a surprising result

XRISM catches a pulsar's cosmic wind—and sees a surprising result
An artist’s conception of a pulsar/main sequence star pair, similar to the one featured in the study. Credit: ESA

The universe is a strange place. The X-ray Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission (XRISM) orbiting observatory recently highlighted this fact, when it was turned on a pulsar to document its powerful cosmic winds.

The XRISM observatory is a joint mission for NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA). The mission was also a replacement for the ill-fated Hitomi X-ray observatory, which failed shortly after launch in 2016.

The discovery comes courtesy of ESA’s Resolve instrument, a soft X-ray spectrometer aboard XRISM. The study looked at neutron star GX 13+1...

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