Geminga, a nearby pulsar
Posted: 02.11.2008, 11:32
For the OA project, I'm making a Celestia model of a nearby neutron star, Geminga; the excellent pulsar models by Cham are an inspiration, but I wanted to see if I could make one from first principles. But I've got a question. Should the central object be flattened by its rotation?
here is a movie (2.5 mb) of the work in progress
http://www.orionsarm.com/movies/Geminga.wmv
this movie is slowed down, somewhat; the real star rotates about 4 times a second.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geminga
All the models and graphics I've seen of pulsars and neutron stars show the central object as a near-perfect sphere; however, such a fast spinning object should surely be flattened into a highly oblate spheroid.
My question is, should pulsars be modelled as oblate spheroids? In other words is neutronium fluid enough to become distorted by centrifugal force? It would be easy, using Celestia's settings, to model such an object as an M+M shaped spheroid, although I would have to guess the degree of oblateness (unless that information is available somehow).
here is a movie (2.5 mb) of the work in progress
http://www.orionsarm.com/movies/Geminga.wmv
this movie is slowed down, somewhat; the real star rotates about 4 times a second.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geminga
All the models and graphics I've seen of pulsars and neutron stars show the central object as a near-perfect sphere; however, such a fast spinning object should surely be flattened into a highly oblate spheroid.
My question is, should pulsars be modelled as oblate spheroids? In other words is neutronium fluid enough to become distorted by centrifugal force? It would be easy, using Celestia's settings, to model such an object as an M+M shaped spheroid, although I would have to guess the degree of oblateness (unless that information is available somehow).