| Description |
We are studying "Black Widow" and "Redback" pulsars, namesakes of the spiders which are known to cannibalise their mates. These pulsars have low-mass stars in close orbits around them, which are being drastically heated by the intense radiation from the pulsar, leaving behind a comet-like tail of material. It was recently discovered that the material in this tail can act like a magnifying glass to the pulsar, focusing large amounts of radiation to us at Earth (This is the same effect as the bright lines of light at the bottom of a pool, caused by the uneven surface and refraction from the water). We are using this effect to study these pulsars in great detail, distinguishing scales of ~10 km at the pulsar, much finer than can possibly be done with telescopes on Earth.
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