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Science Astronomers see star turn into pulsar
Science Astronomers see star turn into pulsar | Astronomers see star turn into pulsar |
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| by William Atkins | |
| Saturday, 23 May 2009 | |
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Science DiscussionsThe paper “A Radio Pulsar/X-ray Binary Link” was published online on May 21, 2009 in Science Express (DOI: 10.1126/science.1172740), part of Science magazine. Team members are from Canada, Australia, Russia, the Netherlands, and the United States. Its authors are Anne M. Archibald, Ingrid H. Stairs, Scott M. Ransom, Victoria M. Kaspi, Vladislav I. Kondratiev, Duncan R. Lorimer, Maura A. McLaughlin, Jason Boyles, Jason W. T. Hessels, Ryan Lynch, Joeri van Leeuwen, Mallory S. E. Roberts, Frederick Jenet, David J. Champion, Rachel Rosen, Brad N. Barlow, Bart H. Dunlap, and Ronald A. Remillard. According to the CSIRO media release, “Astronomers catch a star being revved-up,” an international team of astronomers observed a star being transformed into a millisecond pulsar, which spins at nearly 600 revolutions per second. Check out the CSIRO article for animation of the millisecond pulsar and its companion star. Such pulsars are super-dense neutron stars; that is, the leftover of a massive star that has exploded and then condensed into a very dense core. In fact, the CSIRO article states, “A teaspoon of neutron-star material has a mass of about a billion tonnes.” And, this pulsar is a special type of pulsar called a millisecond pulsar because it rotates at hundreds of times per second. Most pulsars rotate at only tens of times per second. In the past, astronomers thought millisecond pulsars were just ordinary pulsars that had been forced to spin faster by the addition of material from a companion star, while it orbits close by. Page two continues with more.... |
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