| Description |
Pulsars are what remains when a star that is about ten times more massive than our Sun explodes in a supernova. They are incredibly tiny (about 10 miles across), dense (more dense than the nucleus of an atom!), fast-spinning (some spin faster than your kitchen blender!) objects that emit radio and other forms of light from near their magnetic poles. Because their magnetic axis is not aligned with their rotation axis, pulsars appear to pulse as they spin, in the same way that a lighthouse appears to pulse. The pulsar we are studying is in a binary system, which means it orbits around another star. In this case, the other star is actually either a white dwarf or another neutron star. Additionally, this binary system is very eccentric, meaning its orbit is far from circular; in fact, this particular system happens to be the most eccentric binary with a pulsar in it that has been found so far. This binary system very interesting because the characteristics of its orbit will make it possible for us to measure the mass of the pulsar. If the pulsar is above a certain mass, it will be used to better understand what pulsars are actually made of -- which is important for figuring out how much an object can ``weigh'' before it collapses under its own gravity to form a black hole.
|
ICAR Research Data Repository for Knowledge Management