  Short range correlations (SRC) have been known to be an important aspect of
nuclear theory for some time. Recent works have re-ignited interest on this
topic, particularly due to the fact that it has recently been demonstrated that
SRC may be responsible for breaking pairing gaps in nuclear matter. In this
work we revisit the concept of SRC for beta equilibrated matter in neutron
stars. We construct two equivalent models, with and without SRC and proceed to
investigate the thermal evolution of stars described by such models. We show
that SRC play a major role in the thermal evolution of neutron stars. It will
be shown that while the SRC largely leaves the macroscopic properties of the
star unaltered, it significantly alters the proton fraction, thus leading to an
early onset of the direct Urca (DU) process, which in turns leads to stars
exhibiting much faster cooling.
