D. Ducros; ESA/XMM-Newton, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
Joel Kontinen
Over 400 light years from us, there
is a cluster of young neutron stars that are too hot for their age. These
stars, known as the "Magnificent Seven," emit a stream of
ultra-high-energy X-rays that scientists haven't been able to explain.
Now, scientists have
proposed a possible culprit: axions, theoretical particles that turn into light
particles when they are in the presence of a magnetic field.
In a new study, published January
12 in the journal Physical Review
Letters, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
physicist Benjamin Safdi and colleagues used supercomputers to model the idea
that axions produced inside the stars could convert to X-rays in
the magnetic fields outside the stars.
However, there
is no evidence of ultra high energy x-rays or even axions. Axions might be a
component dark matter, the unobserved stuff that seems to make
up over a quarter of the universe's mass.
But who knows.
Source:
Pappas, Stephanie. 2021. Mystery particle may explain extreme X-rays shooting from the 'Magnificent 7' stars. Live Science 20 January.
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