Astronomers told about the awakening of the neutron star P13 after a lull

Astronomers have recorded a unique awakening of the neutron star P13. Over the course of a decade, its X-ray brightness has changed hundreds of times, and its rotation rate has accelerated, revealing new data on supercritical accretion. This was reported on December 14 in the journal Science Daily.

The researchers studied the neutron star P13, located about 10 million light-years away, which is undergoing a supercritical accretion process — an intense drop of gas onto a compact object. During the observations for 2011-2024 using XMM-Newton, Chandra, and NuSTA data.

In 2021, P13 was in the phase of minimum brightness, and in 2022 it began to wake up again. By 2024, the brightness has increased by more than 100 times compared to 2021. At the same time, the rotation rate doubled and remained high until the end of the observation period. According to the astronomers, these changes indicate the evolution of the accretion structure, in particular, the change in the height of the accretion column over the course of a decade.

The authors of the study noted that their observations provide a rare opportunity to understand how compact objects accumulate matter and reach bright X-ray levels, and the results open up new prospects for studying the mechanism of supercritical accretion and bright X-ray sources.

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On December 9, Science American magazine reported the discovery of the oldest supernova that died in the explosion. It was clarified that the age of the object refers to the period when the universe was younger than 1 billion years, and the cosmos was only 5% of its current age. According to the publication, scientists were surprised that the explosion resembles modern supernovae.

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