x-ray burster
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x-ray burster
[′eks ‚rā ′bər·stər] (astronomy)
One of a class of celestial x-ray sources which produce bursts of x-rays in the 1-20-kiloelectronvolt range and which are characterized by rise times of less than a few seconds and decay times of a few seconds to a few minutes; the peak luminosity is of the order of 1038 ergs per second (1031 watts) and the sources have an average equivalent temperature of 108K.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
References in periodicals archive
Up to now astronomers have known two classes of bursting sources of high-energy radiation in the sky, gamma-ray bursters and X-ray bursters. Gamma-ray bursters tend to burst once and not again.
X-ray bursters are probably in our galaxy and may be stars that suffer periodic nuclear explosions on their surfaces.
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