Telescope Tag-Team Discovers 10 Strange and Exotic Pulsars
Astronomers have discovered 10 new pulsars in the globular cluster Terzan 5, located towards the center of our Milky Way galaxy in the constellation Sagittarius. This cluster is home to hundreds of thousands of different stars, including the newly identified monstrous neutron stars, known as pulsars. The findings are published in the journal *Astronomy & Astrophysics*.
Pulsars are incredibly dense, rotating rapidly and emitting bright pulses of light due to their strong magnetic fields, making them easily detectable. Terzan 5, already known to house 39 pulsars, now has an additional 10 discovered through the collaborative efforts of the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Green Bank Telescope (NSF GBT) and the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory’s MeerKAT Telescope.
Scott Ransom from the U.S. National Science Foundation National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NSF NRAO) highlighted the excitement of finding such a diverse array of pulsars in a single cluster. The discoveries were made by an international team from NSF NRAO, the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute) (AEI), and the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy.
The MeerKAT Telescope tracked and timed the pulsars’ rotations, while 20 years of observations from the NSF GBT revealed their eccentric details. Ransom noted that the NSF GBT archive was crucial for characterizing these pulsars and understanding their astrophysics, allowing astronomers to pinpoint their positions, measure their movements, and observe changes in their orbits over time.
Among the new discoveries, astronomers found two neutron stars orbiting each other as a binary system, a rare phenomenon with only 20 known instances in the galaxy. This pair could potentially hold the record for the fastest spinning pulsar in a double neutron-star system and the longest orbit of its kind.
Additionally, three new rare pulsar “spider” binary systems were observed, adding to the five already known in the cluster. These systems, known as Redbacks or Black Widows depending on their companion stars, feature a companion star gradually dissolving due to the pulsar’s energy.
These discoveries enhance our understanding of globular clusters, neutron stars, and even allow for testing Einstein’s theory of general relativity. The research team plans to continue their search for more pulsars in Terzan 5 with the help of volunteers.
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