They both suck.
They both blow.
Both incredibly dense.
Both are burned out remnants of what they once were.
But object XTE J1739-285 has managed to edge out White House SpokesMannequin Tony "I'm not sure anything went wrong [in Iraq]" Snow at “Teh Spin” by nearly six rotations per second.
Clocked?
Clocked!
From SPACE.com
Star Shatters Spinning Speed Record
Robert Roy Britt/Senior Science Writer
A star found spinning more than a thousand times every second is thought to be the fastest rotating star known.
The neutron star is a burned out corpse that's collapsed into an incredible density rivaled only by black holes. It packs the mass of the Sun into a sphere the size of a city. It has been reduced to nothing but tightly huddled neutrons. A thimbleful would weigh a hundred million tons back here on Earth.
The neutron star rotates rapidly because, like a skater pulling her arms in, all its momentum is now highly concentrated.
The tiny but mighty star siphons material from a larger companion. Every now and then, a coating of the material ignites a thermonuclear explosion on the neutron star, and X-rays are released [image]. Using the European Space Agency's Integral satellite, astronomers watched these emissions to measure the spin rate of the star, catalogued as XTE J1739-285.
It is zipping around on its axis 1,122 times every second. That smashes the previous record of 760 spins per second for a neutron star.
"It was quite a surprise to us," said ESA scientist Erik Kuulkers.
…
However for the record, for all of XTE J1739-285s impressive stats, the all-time record for dark, destructive objects spinning at incomprehensible speed is still held jointly by Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld.
And the density prize is still locked safely away
in this guy’s trophy case.
2 comments:
you said you were gonna tell us how you did the eyes on this picture.
We should send Snow on an expedition to the heart of that spinning star, post haste.
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