In a cool neutron star (T . 10 K) endowed with a rather high magnetic field (B & 10 G), a phase transition may occur in the outermost layers. As a consequence the neutron star becomes “bare”, i.e. no gaseous atmosphere sits on the top of the crust. The surface of a cooling, bare neutron star does not necessarily emit a blackbody spectrum because the emissivity is strongly suppressed at energies...