Object over 10 million times brighter than sun baffles scientists

From Washington Examiner.com (May 10):

Scientists are scrambling to understand a celestial object that glows over 10 million times brighter than the sun and is upending the current understanding of physics.

Scientists have ruled that ultraluminous X-ray sources, or ULXs, shouldn't exist because they are so bright that they should explode. The anomaly is roughly 100 times brighter than should be possible considering the Eddington limit, which puts a limit on how bright an object can be based on its mass, according to NASA.

One hypothesis suggested that the apparent brightness was only an illusion. A new study published in the Astrophysical Journal rejected this hypothesis, finding that ULXs are just as bright as seen.

The study used NASA's Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array to study the ULX M82 X-2, the first ever discovered. The findings present a new hypothesis that ULXs form on neutron stars, which are hyperdense tiny stars that absorb immense energy at rapid speeds. The hypothesis holds that the brightness is due to the intense magnetic field of the neutron star changing the shape of atoms.

“These observations let us see the effects of these incredibly strong magnetic fields that we could never reproduce on Earth with current technology,” Matteo Bachetti, an astrophysicist with the National Institute of Astrophysics’s Cagliari Observatory in Italy and lead author on the recent study, told NASA.

“This is the beauty of astronomy. Observing the sky, we expand our ability to investigate how the universe works. On the other hand, we cannot really set up experiments to get quick answers; we have to wait for the universe to show us its secrets,” he added.

However, the full truth of the phenomenon can only be guessed because the magnetic field is incalculably powerful. A neutron star's magnetic field is estimated to be several billion times more powerful than the most powerful magnet produced on Earth. [source]

The universe will always be mysterious. That’s not a bad thing. It keeps life interesting.