Latest Neutron Stories

Researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and the University of Maryland have developed a new optical method that can detect individual neutrons and record them over a range of intensities at least a hundred times greater than existing detectors. The new detector, described at the March Meeting of the American Physical Society* by Charles Clark, a Fellow of the Joint Quantum Institute of NIST and the University of Maryland, promises to improve existing neutron...

High-energy physicists devoted to recreating the conditions at the beginning of the universe have for the first time observed a new way to produce those basic particles of atoms, protons and neutrons.Confirming a decades-old prediction, the physicists with the CLEO collaboration say they observed a rare and extremely short-lived subatomic particle with the unusual name of "charmed-strange meson" decay into a proton and anti-neutron.Detection of the event, which the collaboration made public...

CSIs now have a new tool in their belt: the chemical signatures left by local drinking water in human hair. Scientists at the University of Utah have found that the ratios of different forms of hydrogen and oxygen in local drinking water vary from region to region across the country. These elements are incorporated into the hair as it grows. Traces in the hair can show where a person has recently lived or traveled, and could help police track the recent movements of criminals....

AUSTIN, Texas -- Neutron stars and black holes aren't all they've been thought to be. In fact, neutron stars can be considerably more massive than previously believed, and it is more difficult to form black holes, according to new research developed by using the Arecibo Observatory in Arecibo, Puerto Rico. Paulo Freire, an astronomer from the observatory, will present his research at the American Astronomical Society national meeting in Austin on Jan. 11. The Arecibo Observatory is managed...

Antimatter, which annihilates matter upon contact, seems to be rare in the universe. Still, for decades, scientists had clues that a vast cloud of antimatter lurked in space, but they did not know where it came from. The mysterious source of this antimatter has now been discovered — stars getting ripped apart by neutron stars and black holes. While antimatter propulsion systems are so far the stuff of science fiction, antimatter is very real. What it is...

Four years of observations from the European Space Agency's Integral (INTErnational Gamma-Ray Astrophysics Laboratory) satellite may have cleared up one of the most vexing mysteries in our Milky Way: the origin of a giant cloud of antimatter surrounding the galactic center.As reported by an international team in the January 10 issue of Nature, Integral found that the cloud extends farther on the western side of the galactic center than it does on the eastern side. This imbalance matches the...

XMM-Newton has given astronomers and physics a valuable new insight into the most exotic stars in the Universe. Known as neutron stars, the composition of these extremely dense stellar objects has always been something of a puzzle. Now, XMM-Newton has revealed that they almost certainly resemble over-sized atomic nuclei.Natalie Webb and Didier Barret, Centre d'Etude Spatiale des Rayonnements, Toulouse, France, have used XMM-Newton's EPIC camera to find three previously undiscovered neutron...

XMM-Newton has detected periodic X-ray emission, or the pulsed heartbeat of a weird new type of star. Collecting the X-rays from the so-called rotating radio transient has confirmed the nature of the underlying celestial object and given astronomers a new insight into these exotic objects.The observations were made using XMM-Newton's European Photon Imaging Camera (EPIC), which targeted the celestial object RRAT J1819"“1458. Astronomers observed the object for around 12 hours and detected...

Astronomers using XMM-Newton and Suzaku have seen Einstein's predicted distortion of space-time and pioneered a ground-breaking technique for determining the properties of neutron stars.ESA's XMM-Newton and the JAXA/NASA Suzaku X-ray observatories have been used to see the distortion of space-time around three neutron stars. These objects contain the densest observable matter in the Universe.Neutron stars cram more than a Sun's worth of material into a city-sized sphere. This means that a cup...

NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory has revealed an X-ray jet blasting away from a neutron star in a binary system. This discovery may help astronomers understand how neutron stars as well as black holes can generate powerful beams of relativistic particles. The jet was found in Circinus X-1, a system where a neutron star is in orbit around a star several times the mass of the Sun, about 20,000 light years from Earth. A neutron star is an extremely dense remnant of an exploded star consisting of...