Astronomers have identified ten new and intriguing neutron stars, known as pulsars, near the Milky Way’s core. Located in the dense globular cluster Terzan 5, which is 18,000 light-years away, these rapidly spinning stars may exhibit unusual and extreme characteristics due to their unique environment.
Spider Pulsars and Vampire Stars
Among these discoveries are several “spider pulsars” that ensnare and destroy companion stars with intense plasma webs, and a rapidly spinning “vampire star” that feeds off its neighboring stars. Pulsars are neutron stars that can rotate up to 700 times per second, emitting beams of radiation from their poles that sweep through space like a lighthouse. The newly found pulsars in Terzan 5 are part of a cluster housing hundreds of thousands of stars aged between 4.5 and 12 billion years.
Terzan 5: A Pulsar Hotspot
Previously, 39 pulsars were known in Terzan 5, one of the Milky Way’s most crowded regions. “Discovering such exotic new pulsars is rare,” said Scott Ransom “The wide variety of these peculiar stars within a single cluster is truly exciting.”
Tools and Techniques
Ransom and his team used the Green Bank Telescope and the MeerKAT Telescope to detect these pulsars. By tracking their locations and rotation timings with MeerKAT and comparing these with two decades of data from the Green Bank Telescope, they unveiled the unique features of these stars.
Rare Double Neutron-Star Binary
Among the finds are two neutron stars in a rare double neutron-star binary system. While about 3,600 pulsars have been discovered in the Milky Way, only 20 are double neutron-star binaries. In these systems, one neutron star siphons material from the other, increasing its spin to create a “millisecond pulsar” that can rotate hundreds of times per second. The newly discovered pair seems to spin faster than 716 rotations per second, surpassing the current record-holder, PSR J1748−2446ad, also in Terzan 5.
**Rare Spider Pulsars**
The team also identified three new “spider pulsars,” categorized as “Redbacks” or “Black Widows” based on their companion stars. Redback spider pulsars target stars with 10% to 50% of the sun’s mass, while Black Widow spider pulsars prey on smaller stars with less than 5% of the sun’s mass.
These discoveries offer valuable insights into pulsar behavior and their evolution within globular clusters. The researchers are eager to uncover more cosmic anomalies in Terzan 5 and are enlisting citizen scientists for future explorations.
