Exotic Cosmic Object's Brightness Is 10 Million Times That of the Sun's; NASA Study Shows That It Defies the 'Eddington Limit'

There are exotic cosmic objects out there that have been observed to defy the laws of physics.

Ultraluminous X-Ray Sources

Astronomers have dubbed them ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs). As per Live Science, the exuded energy of these objects is comparatively 10 million times greater than that of the sun.

These ULXs are extremely radiant, to the point where they go beyond a set physical limit called the Eddington limit. This hypothesis places a ceiling on how bright an object can be based on its size and mass. Because ULXs go beyond this limit by roughly 100 to 500 times, scientists have been left baffled by such phenomena, as noted by NASA in a statement.

Now a recent study from NASA's NuSTAR (Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array) has confirmed that there is a particular ULX, M82 X-2, that is exceptionally bright. Findings were included in the Astrophysical Journal.

Why Is M82 X-2 Extraordinarily Bright?

While astronomers previously thought that ULXs were black holes, M82 X-2 is actually a neutron star. As per Phys, this was revealed through NuSTAR data from 2014.

These stars are the remnants and dead cores of stars, such as the sun. They are remarkably dense, to the point where their surface gravity is around 100 trillion times stronger compared to earth's.

Because of this great gravity, virtually anything sucked into its surface may garner a bursting impact. In fact, NASA notes that, if a marshmallow fell onto the surface of the neutron star, the tiny object would have the energy equivalent to a thousand hydrogen bombs.

This recent study looked further into M82 X-2 and discovered that it consumed up to 1.5 times the earth's mass, which is equivalent to around 9 billion trillion tons of cosmic material. This material was stolen from its neighboring star.

Phys notes that knowledge of the quantity of material consumed can enable scientists to gauge the brightness of the ULX. Their calculations aligned with standalone brightness measures and, thus, confirmed that M82 X-2 went beyond the Eddington limit.

If the researchers would be able to verify the brightness across other ULXs, they may be able to shelf the hypothesis that may explain the brightness of such objects without the need for ULXs to go beyond the Eddington limit. Such a hypothesis holds that strong winds produce a hollow cone surrounding a light source. This enables most emissions to be concentrated in one direction. If these directly faced earth, an optical illusion may result. The ULX may falsely appear like it went beyond the brightness ceiling.

Other than this possibility, the researchers are also considering that an extraordinarily strong magnetic field plays a role in this. The field in the neutron star could alter the star's atom shapes and enable the star to stick even tighter as it grows in size.

Matteo Bachetti, the study's lead author and an astrophysicist from the Cagliari Observatory of the National Institute of Astrophysics, notes that such observations enable them to see the impacts of extraordinarily powerful magnetic fields that could never be replicated on earth with present technologies. He adds that this is part of what makes astronomy beautiful. By examining the sky, knowledge gets expanded. However, on the other hand, scientists cannot conduct experiments; they simply need to wait for the universe to unveil its own secrets.

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