William Atkins
Friday, 16 May 2008 20:59
Science -
Space
Page 1 of 2
Astronomers are perplexed at a rapidly spinning pulsar, known as J1903+0327, because it is orbiting a star similar to the Sun in a very unusual orbit—two actions that haven’t been seen before.
A
pulsar is an extremely dense, highly magnetized rotating neutron star (a very rare type of neutron star), which is created when a star explodes as a supernova.
Astronomers on Earth can see them by detecting their radio waves, a type of electromagnetic radiation (light), that is emitted as they spin about.
This specific pulsar—called J1903+0327—is about 21,000 light-years from Earth; that is, about 126,000 trillion miles (203,000 trillion kilometers), or 126 quadrillion miles (203 quadrillion kilometers), away.
Astronomers used a survey of the galactic disk performed by astronomers using a radio telescope at the Arecibo Observatory (from Puerto Rico). From the data, they found PSR J1903+0327, a radio emitting neutron star (or “pulsar”, PSR).
Its rotational period is a rapid 2.15 milliseconds--about 465 revolutions per second. [Author: Corrected from earlier figure.] Because of its very fast spinning motion, it is classified as a millisecond pulsar.
Most pulsars spin much slower--a few times each second. So, a millisecond pulsar spins very, very rapidly--at hundreds of times each second.
J1903+0327 is also in an elongated orbit—an orbit that is very long, much different than a normal circular or elliptical orbit—about a star, and astronomers can’t figure out how it got there and why it is orbiting this star in such a manner.
The orbit about the main-sequence star, similar in characteristics to our Sun, takes approximately 95 days to complete.
One of the authors of the pulsar study, American astronomer
Scott M. Ransom (pdf file), of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (Charlottesville, Virginia, U.S.A.) poses the statement:
“The big question is--how in the heck did this thing form, because it doesn't follow our standard models of how these things form.” [Reuters: “
Astronomers baffled by weird, fast-spinning pulsar”]
Astronomers studying this strange pulsar are puzzled because its position within the galactic disk does not explain why it is spinning so fast and why it has such an elongated (high orbital eccentricity, of 0.44) orbit.
The astronomers have some theories to explain this strange pulsar. Please read on.
