{"id":130100,"date":"2026-10-22T14:25:05","date_gmt":"2026-10-22T08:55:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/?p=130100"},"modified":"2026-10-22T14:25:05","modified_gmt":"2026-10-22T08:55:05","slug":"centaurus-x-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/centaurus-x-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Centaurus X-3"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2><b>Centaurus X-3 Latest News<\/b><\/h2>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Scientists have discovered that one of the brightest X-ray pulsars, Centaurus X-3 is gobbling up material through an accretion disk.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><b>About Centaurus X-3<\/b><\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is one of the <\/span><b>brightest X-ray pulsars <\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">discovered in the <\/span><b>constellation Centaurus.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It is a <\/span><b>high-mass X-ray binary<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> (HMXB) where the companion is more than 10 times the Sun\u2019s mass,<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Location:<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> It is located <\/span><b>approximately 24,000 light-years from Earth.\u00a0<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It <\/span><b>contains a disk-fed pulsar<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> with a period of 4.84 seconds that is in a 2.087 day orbit around an O-star companion.\u00a0<\/span>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">An X-ray binary pulsar <\/span><b>consists of a <a href=\"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/pulsars\/\" target=\"_blank\">pulsar<\/a><\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u2014 a highly magnetised neutron star, and <\/span><b>a Sun-like star bound in a gravitational dance.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">A neutron star is a celestial body with the mass of our sun crunched into a ball the size of Bangalore.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"2\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In an X-ray binary, the pulsar\u2019s <\/span><b>extreme gravity pulls in material ejected by its companion<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> star, and the <\/span><b>pulsar starts accreting material from it<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, shooting out X-rays in the process.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3><b>What are Pulsars?<\/b><\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">These are <\/span><b>rapidly rotating neutron stars<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> that <\/span><b>blast out pulses of radiation<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> at regular intervals ranging from seconds to milliseconds.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Pulsars emit radiation<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> from their magnetic poles, known as the <\/span><b>primary emission.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pulsars have very strong magnetic fields, which funnel jets of particles out along the two magnetic poles. These accelerated particles produce <\/span><b>very powerful beams of light.<\/b><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pulsars have been primarily observed at radio wavelengths.\u00a0<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Pulsar masses range between 1.18 and 1.97 times that of the Sun, but most pulsars have a mass 1.35 times that of the Sun..<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Source:<\/b> <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.pib.gov.in\/PressReleasePage.aspx?PRID=2326032&amp;reg=48&amp;lang=2\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">PIB<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Centaurus X-3 is one of the brightest X-ray pulsars discovered in the constellation Centaurus. Read more about Centaurus X-3, Location, Latest News.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":24,"featured_media":130093,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[11079],"class_list":["post-130100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-upsc-prelims-current-affairs","tag-centaurus-x-3","no-featured-image-padding"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130100"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":130172,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130100\/revisions\/130172"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130093"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/vajiramandravi.com\/current-affairs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}