Squishy Stars, Science, and Sirach

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Keith Gendreau/NASA/Goddard's photo: 'NICER Optics Lead Takashi Okajima installs one of NICER's 56 X-ray concentrators, each consisting of 24 concentric foils.... The Neutron star Interior Composition Explorer (NICER) is a NASA Explorer Mission of Opportunity dedicated to studying the extraordinary environments - strong gravity, ultra-dense matter, and the most powerful magnetic fields in the universe - [of] neutron stars. An attached payload aboard the International Space Station, NICER will deploy an instrument with unique capabilities for timing and spectroscopy of fast X-ray brightness fluctuations. The embedded Station Explorer for X-ray Timing and Navigation Technology demonstration (SEXTANT) will use NICER data to validate, for the first time in space, technology that exploits pulsars as natural navigation beacons.' (July 9, 2015) via Wikipedia, used w/o permission.

A paper published this month doesn't so much tell us what's inside a neutron star, as show what's not inside. Considering how little we know about these immensely-dense stellar objects, that's a significant step toward understanding the things.

I'll take a look at that, but mostly I'll be talking about what we've been learning, and why I think paying attention to this wonder-packed universe is a good idea.

Even if — maybe because — this Haldane quote, written a few years before we knew about neutron stars, still reflects how God's universe has been surprising us.

"Now, my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose…."
("Possible Worlds and Other Essays", p. 286, J. B. S. Haldane (1927) via Wikiquote)

More at A Catholic Citizen in America.

(Recent research narrows the possible states of matter inside pulsars. An overview of astronomy, and why paying attention to this universe is a good idea.)

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