Astronomers discover lonely neutron star

Washington, May 30: Astronomers have discovered a special kind of neutron star that has both a low magnetic field and no stellar companion. The neutron star is located within the remains of a supernova — known as 1E 0102.2-7219 (E0102 for short) — in the Small Magellanic Cloud, located 200,000 light years from Earth, according to a study published in the journal Nature Astronomy. The discovery was made using data from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile. About 10 such objects have been detected in the Milky Way galaxy, but this is the first one detected outside our galaxy, NASA said in a statement on Tuesday. Neutron stars are the ultra dense cores of massive stars that collapse and undergo a supernova explosion. (IANS)