So I visited a pulsar...

[Zenicetus]

True, but the emitted light is confined to two very narrow beams that rotate with the spinning star. If you aren't looking at it from the right direction, you'll probably see nothing.

Just an amateur astronomer geek here, but I disagree. As I understand it, the beams are narrow but most pulsars don't rotate uniformly. They wobble, and only a slight wobble makes the energy beams cover a fairly wide track.

And then... unless the home system had been 100% cleared out of dust and gas by the initial blast, the intense energy from the sweeping beams should still be interacting with whatever dust and gas is left in the system and lighting it up. It would have to be a very empty system not to show anything at all, from that amount of energy poured into the neighborhood. And it should still be lighting up SN remnant gas moving at slower than C when viewed from nearby star systems.

Maybe one day we'll see this in the game. It would be an interesting thing, to have to navigate a star system with a Pulsar and avoid the beam sweep.

 

[Eros]

From my days as a Physics and Astronomy undergrad, these objects will likely emit all over their surface. They are degenerate objects that are very extreme, if you think of them as mostly an atomic nucleus then they will predominantly gamma rays, (Remember the difference between x and gamma rays is the origin; nucleus... then its a gamma, electron shell then its an x-ray) SOooo minor changes on the neutron star such as say, an object falling into it, or say a geometric change, will change the energy configuration of the object and like an atomic nucleus, it will attempt to reach a lower energy state by radiating (if quantum mechanics allows) SO the star will most definitely give you a lovely gamma bake.

Around the neutron star there is likely to be a thin atmosphere/plasma of what we traditionally call metals which will probably act to bring down the wavelength overall, likely giving you some light in the optical spectrum. Not to mention the gamma bake of surrounding dust and gas which should produce a lovely haze

The beaming of light is not a fully understood process, and Zenicetus is correct, these appear to be from the magnetic poles of the star, which do not have to be aligned with the geometrical poles, so you can get a wide sweeping motion, that traces a circle near each pole, OR a light house style thing. The light emitted in those beams is rather faint still and cover a wide band of emissions.

Pulsars rotate rapidly, and they stop pulsing with age, seemingly as they loose angular momentum via the emission of energy, either as EM or gravitational waves (yet to be determined fully)

These objects are pretty extreme! For the nerds out there, White dwarfs, neutron stars, and blackholes should fit into a fairly well understood mass banding...

White dwarfs can be smaller than the Chandrasekhar Limit or 1.4 Solar Masses

Neutron stars - bridge the gap between the Chandrasekhar limit and Tolman–Oppenheimer–Volkoff limit of about 3 Solar masses

Pretty awesome doing the calculations of electron and neutron degeneracy pressures...

 

[Finny Toecutter]

There are light-emitting X-Ray pulsars in the game now.. just none close to Sol area... Thank God.

 

[Gameassassin1020]

In reality even getting close to that pulsar would obliterate you and the 2 beams of high intensity radiation (that should be emitting from it's poles) would be like a sniper. Not to mention it would be spinning, unsure how fast though. Either way, I can't imagine pulsar being realistic in game being any fun XD

 

[Eros]

mmmm would be quite interesting to simulate a fast spinning one in game, one with 1000 RPM say haha, Just gotta not cross the beams... that said, you would not actually see them until you crossed them lol

 

[kamenjar]

Since I'm thick as Anaconda's armor when it comes to some of this "density" stuff lol ... Maybe you can help with what's been confusing me...
(From y FAQ)
Trailblazer: How do I find terraforming candidates?
Terraforming candidates till triple the scan value for a high-metal content planet, which means that you are gonna get about 18000 CR for each scan. They key seems to be to find any planet with atmosphere in habitable zones. Habitable zone hot spots seem to be the following (please report with more accurate data and tips):
K: 0.5 AU
G: 1 AU
F: 2 AU
A: 2.5 AU
....
Neutron Star (Temp=1,300,000 K): Probably under 2 AU.
Neutron Star (Temp=3,300,000 K): 7 AU!

Typical F/G/K star temps range from about 5000 to about 7000. Now this neutron star with billions of degrees temps makes a habitable zone of 2 AU only. The terminating candidate planet I found had a surface temp of under 300K. Is that something that devs just slapped in without thought, or is there an explanation?

BTW, playing this game made me think about what Eros said:

....Then you realise that the statement "The sun is just an ordinary star" is completely garbage.

So true!

 

[Zieman]

Pulsars most likely do pulse in visible wavelength, or at least some of them do. The Crab Pulsar is a good example.

Wikipedia lists 6 optical pulsars.

Crab Pulsar's frequency is about 30,3 Hz so the pulsing might be difficult to spot unaided.

Vela Pulsar spins more slowly, only ~11,2 times per second and PSR B1509-58 ~7 times per second.

 

[mitchman]

I want to see SEI-701 in the game. SEI-700 is there, why not SEI-701 which Keplar has confirmed to contain a Earth-sized planet (40% bigger) in the habitable zone of the star.

 

[Eros]

So Kamenjar, the calculation has also to do with surface area as it does with temperature.

The temperature if it is emitting a black body spectrum scales the flux by a power of 4, so F = sigma T^4

so F for a neutron star is HUGE at 1.5million K, F = 2.87x10^17 W/m^2 BUT the diameter of a neutron star is usually about 20km, sooo the surface area is A =4Pi()r^2 = 5.02x10^9 m^2 so the energy output from the surface is 1.44x10^27 W

The sun, for example we get F = 64.1x10^6 W/m^2 BUT the area of the sun is... 6.09x10^18 m^2 !!! soooo the total energy output is 3.9x10^26 W

So, the total energy budget for the object is VERY similar, despite vastly different temperatures. Now this should be fairly obvious why giant stars tend to fry you even though you are a long way away from them in comparison to a smaller star.

There is a great calculation of the whole thing that goes into a basic "What temperature is a planet at X distance on wikipedia" here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effective_temperature and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stefan–Boltzmann_law

 

[Michael Brookes]

In game measurements will be a straight line, "as the crow flies"

Had wondered about which star catalogues/sources the game uses. I suspect they maybe averaged from different sources or fuzzied up the distances/degrees a little to prevent automation. Just a thought.

Great screenshots OP, I've yet to see anything like that in the early days of my travels.

Hipparcos and Gliese were the main sources. Keplar as well - although that was the weakest in terms of establishing distances.

Michael

 

[Eros]

Brilliant Michael, Iv noticed that alot/most of the local stars have alternative catalog numbers which i recognized from my Uni days, random question though, are there any variables in there in terms of things like, short time scale variable stars or are things static.

Regardless of is yes or no, still epic amount of detail in all this

 

[Michael Brookes]

Brilliant Michael, Iv noticed that alot/most of the local stars have alternative catalog numbers which i recognized from my Uni days, random question though, are there any variables in there in terms of things like, short time scale variable stars or are things static.

Regardless of is yes or no, still epic amount of detail in all this

No variables - except were the variable nature is caused by a companion star's orbit.

Michael

 

[Ravenstar]

I too would like to know whyPSR J0108-1431 is 600+ LY from Earth when in reality it's supposedly 420 LY (and some sources claim even less). I was under impression all the known stellar bodies are in their proper places, that was one of the main selling points for me.

I could also ask... Why is there 400 billion star systems in game when estimates put the Milky Way at about 100 billion stars?

 

[mitchman]

Hipparcos and Gliese were the main sources. Keplar as well - although that was the weakest in terms of establishing distances.

Michael

You're missing some of the most important findings from Keplar, btw. SEI 701 for instance, but you have 700.

 

[Bewilderbeest]

I could also ask... Why is there 400 billion star systems in game when estimates put the Milky Way at about 100 billion stars?

According to Wikipedia, "The Milky Way contains at least 100 billion planets and between 200 and 400 billion stars."

 

[Ravenstar]

Brilliant Michael, Iv noticed that alot/most of the local stars have alternative catalog numbers which i recognized from my Uni days, random question though, are there any variables in there in terms of things like, short time scale variable stars or are things static.

Regardless of is yes or no, still epic amount of detail in all this

Interesting to note. I have found stars in the ED galaxy map by typing an alternate name even though ED doesn't have it labeled as such.

 

[TheEponymousBob]

Hopefully our ships will shield us from the gamma rays before we turn green and tetchy.

 

[Janichsan]

Just an amateur astronomer geek here, but I disagree. As I understand it, the beams are narrow but most pulsars don't rotate uniformly. They wobble, and only a slight wobble makes the energy beams cover a fairly wide track.

They do, but to the best of my knowledge the speed of that wobble (more scientifically: the "precessional frequency") measures usually in the hours and more, so it's extremely slow compared to the rotational speed and hence the frequency of the pulses of the neutron star. In addition, the amount of the precession must be quite small, though I admittedly haven't found any numbers on that, because otherwise we would periodically "lose" the signal of a pulsar from other observational standpoint on Earth.

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No variables - except were the variable nature is caused by a companion star's orbit.

Michael

Any hope we will get variables at some point in the future?

 

[Michael Brookes]

Any hope we will get variables at some point in the future?

Maybe - but like any feature it's bang for buck and there's other celestial stuff we need to do first.

Michael

 

[Maxeren]

Maybe - but like any feature it's bang for buck and there's other celestial stuff we need to do first.

Michael

And what "other" celestial "stuff" are we talking about?