NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR, discovered a brilliant record-breaking dead star that pulsates with the energy of 10 million Suns.
The deceased star is the brightest pulsar ("a dense stellar remnant left over from a supernova explosion") ever observed by scientists, NASA reported.
"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, California. "It has all the power of a black hole, but with much less mass."
The findings could help researchers gain insight into the sources of blinding X-rays, called ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs). In the past these mysterious X-rays have been thought to be black holes, but this new research reveals that (at least this one) is a pulsar.
"The pulsar appears to be eating the equivalent of a black hole diet," Harrison said. "This result will help us understand how black holes gorge and grow so quickly, which is an important event in the formation of galaxies and structures in the universe."
UXLs are typically believed to be black holes feeding off companion stars in a process called "accretion." They have also been hypothesized to be the elusive "medium-sized" black hole, which have never actually been observed.
The researchers noticed the remarkable object when observing a recent supernova. They spotted pulses of X-rays coming from the ULX known as M82 X-2, which was unusual because black holes do not pulsate.
"We took it for granted that the powerful ULXs must be massive black holes," said lead study author Matteo Bachetti, of the University of Toulouse in France. "When we first saw the pulsations in the data, we thought they must be from another source."
Observations from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory and Swift satellite helped determine the X-rays were, in fact, coming from a pulsar.
Astronomers are still not sure how this tiny dead star is giving off such strong radiation, but believe it is most likely due to a process in which the gravity of a neutron star pulls matter off companion stars. Once the matter is dragged onto the neutron star it heats up and glows with X-rays.
"In the news recently, we have seen that another source of unusually bright X-rays in the M82 galaxy seems to be a medium-sized black hole," said astronomer Jeanette Gladstone of the University of Alberta, Canada, who is not affiliated with the study. "Now, we find that the second source of bright X-rays in M82 isn't a black hole at all. This is going to challenge theorists and pave the way for a new understanding of the diversity of these fascinating objects."
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