by Joshua Kerrigan | Sep 15, 2017 | Classics
The first detection of a pulsar and the first Nobel Prize in Physics for an astronomical detection.
by Michael Zevin | Jan 31, 2017 | Daily Paper Summaries
Instead of sitting around and twiddling its thumbs when unused, your computer could be contributing to science! Today’s astrobite highlights the discovery of a rare system that was uncovered through the Einstein@Home project.
by Michael Zevin | Aug 10, 2016 | Classics, Daily Paper Summaries
Since gravitational waves are now on the tip of every astronomer’s tongue, today’s post looks back at a classic paper’s key result that is quintessential in the search for gravitational waves using pulsar timing arrays.
by Ashley Villar | Nov 13, 2015 | Daily Paper Summaries
Some fast radio bursts might be the result of a black hole lighting up a neutron star.
by Ashley Villar | Aug 20, 2015 | Daily Paper Summaries
Extreme transient events are pushing the limits of our standard explosion models, but magnetars may save the day.
by Yvette Cendes | Nov 22, 2013 | Daily Paper Summaries
Title: Evidence of an Asteroid Encountering a Pulsar Authors: P. R. Brook, A. Karastergiou, S. Buchner, S. J. Roberts, M. J. Keith, S. Johnson, R. M. Shannon First Author’s Institution: University of Oxford Pulsars- neutron stars formed during supernovae explosions- are often considered the “precision clocks” of radio astronomy. This is because of two fundamental properties observed from their radio pulses: the average emitted radio beam- known as the pulse profile– remains very stable over decades, and the pulsar has extreme rotational stability thanks to its fast rotation. All pulsars have a rotational frequency, ν, which is gradually decreasing due to a loss of energy, and its change with time, the spin-down rate, tells radio astronomers about the stability of the pulsar. Hundreds of pulsars have been observed to have glitches where the pulsar’s rotational frequency is seen to increase rapidly, and there have even been anti-glitch observations where the pulsar abruptly slowed down, which are thought to be caused by the magnetic fields of the pulsar.But the interesting thing about astronomy is even in a field where things are as precise as pulsars, surprises will still crop up. And this is what happened during a 24-year observing campaign of PSR J0738-4042, when in September 2005 the spin-down rate abruptly changed and a new radio component was observed. In fact, no previously understood mechanism can explain these changes, and the observations led the paper’s authors to propose they witnessed an asteroid encountering the pulsar.The observations were relatively straightforward: PSR J0738-4042 is a bright radio pulsar and was the target of a monitoring campaign by the Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory (HartRAO) in South...
