The Mystery of Milky Way Galaxy

Astronomers have found less than 2,000 pulsars, but there should be about a billion neutron stars in the Milky Way Galaxy. There are two reasons for this cause, and one of them is age. Most neutron stars are billions of years old, indicating they have a very long time to cool and slow down. These neutron stars fade to invisibility due to the lack of energy to power emissions at various wavelengths. Even the young stars are invisible to us because of their narrow light beams (Dunbar, B. (n.d). Neutron Stars.).

Neutron stars are all made up of atoms that have collapsed, and it is basically a giant nucleus. The whole star becomes one single entity as the electrons move along with protons and neutrons side by side in either a gas or fluid. Neutron stars are rather small and if they were more dense than they already are, they would collapse into a black hole. Neutrons help scientists understand the fundamental forces, general relativity, and the early universe. A few seconds after a star begins its alternation into a neutron star, the energy dispersing in neutrinos is equivalent to the overall light emitted amongst all the stars in the observable universe. Most protons in a neutron star convert into to neutrons and release surrounding particles known as neutrinos. 95 percent of neutron stars are made up of neutrons ( Sundermier, A., n.d ).

Neutron stars can be immensely dangerous and can wreak havoc on earth. Since neutron stars have such a strong magnetic field, if it were to enter our solar system, it would cause chaos. It would throw off the orbits of all the planets. If it got close enough, it could possibly raise the tides that would rip our planet apart. The closest known neutron star is approximately 500 light years away. It is very unlikely we would feel the catastrophic effects of this anytime soon since the closest star to earth, Proxima Centauri, has no bearing on our planet ( Sundermier, A., n.d ).The radiation from a neutron star’s magnetic field is relatively more dangerous. Unexpected movements of these fields can produce flares related to solar flares, but much more powerful. Scientists do not know of any nearby magnetar that is powerful enough to cause any damage to the Earth.

On December 27, 2004, scientists observed Magnetar SGR 1806-20 produce a gigantic gamma- ray flare which was estimated to be about 50,000 light years away. The flare radiated as much energy as the sun produces in 300,000 years, in 0.2 seconds. The flare saturated many many spacecraft detectors and produced detectable disturbances in Earth’s ionosphere ( Sundermier, A., n.d ).