Despite Deadly Rays, Pulsars Could Host Habitable Planets

[Judi Lynn]

By Charles Q. Choi, Space.com Contributor | December 19, 2017 05:37 pm ET

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Artistic impression of a habitable planet (center) near a pulsar (right). Such a planet must have an enormous atmosphere that converts the deadly X-rays and high-energy particles of the pulsar into heat.
Credit: Institute of Astronomy, University of Cambridge


Although pulsars regularly blast out deadly gamma rays and X-rays, alien planets in orbit around them could theoretically be habitable, a new study finds.

However, these pulsar worlds are likely not friendly to humans — according to the study, the planets' environment would be more like the bottom of the sea on Earth.

When a large star explodes in a supernova at the end of its life, it can leave behind a dense core of matter called a neutron star. Neutron star matter is the densest known material — a sugar cube-size piece has the mass of a mountain, about 100 million tons. The mass of a single neutron star exceeds that of the sun while fitting into a ball smaller in diameter than London. [Inside a Neutron Star (Infographic)]

Pulsars rotate extraordinarily rapidly, up to thousands of revolutions per second, and they flash like lighthouse beacons — hence their name, which is short for "pulsating star." They regularly blaze with gamma rays and X-rays and spew out energetic particles. According to the new study's researchers, the Milky Way galaxy hosts about 1 billion neutron stars, about 200,000 of which are pulsars.

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https://www.space.com/39157-deadly-pulsars-could-host-habitable-planets.html