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A neutron star was found to have a dense, fog-like wind — a discovery that challenges current theories.
Abstract
In a binary system, a neutron star pulls in material, forming a glowing disk. The disk gives rise to a wind — a stream of gas flowing away. Scientists have for the first time observed an unexpectedly dense and slow wind from the source GX 13+1, even though the star shines very brightly. It's as if a powerful lamp created a gentle breeze, not a hurricane. Why is it so quiet?
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When a companion star pulls matter onto a neutron star, a whirlwind of scorching gas swirls around it. From this, streams erupt — a stellar wind. It was thought that with bright radiation, the wind should race at nearly the speed of light. But the XRISM telescope, examining the light with spectroscopy, showed otherwise.
The wind from GX 13+1 turned out to be not a hurricane, but a dense fog: record-breakingly thick and unexpectedly slow. A speed close to light was expected, but the stream moves thousands of times slower. This can't be explained by light pressure — it's likely pushed out by heating of the outer disk regions.
The dense fog dims the star's visible brilliance, making it fainter.
The discovery forces a rethink of how neutron stars and black holes return matter to the galaxy, influencing the birth of new stars. The contrast with winds from supermassive black holes, flying nearly at light speed, emphasizes that both fog and hurricane coexist in space.
🎯 Neutron stars were theoretically predicted by [scientist:Fritz Zwicky]Fritz Zwicky[/scientist] in 1934, and the first observational confirmation came in 1967 when [scientist:Jocelyn Bell Burnell]Jocelyn Bell Burnell[/scientist] discovered pulsars.
