SYDNEY, June 1 (Xinhua) – An international astronomer-led research team in Australia has discovered a new class of pulsar stars from the depths of a galactic “graveyard”.
Dr Manisha Caleb of the Sydney Institute of Astronomy (SIfA) at the University of Sydney said the pulsar, called PSR J0901-4046, was the first ever to be found in a region of the Milky Way. about 1,300 light-years from Earth.
Speaking to Xinhua on Wednesday, Caleb said the pulsating star did not resemble any of its neighbors, as it was in a part of the galaxy that had long been considered a “cemetery” for neutron stars at the end of their life cycle.
Neutron stars are made up of extremely dense remnants of supernova explosions from massive astronomical objects, while pulsars are a variety of neutron stars that emit beams of electromagnetic radiation from their magnetic poles.
In an article posted on the Conversation website, Caleb wrote that pulsars could normally be controlled “a bit like a lighthouse would flash periodically in the distance.”
The PSR J0901-4046, however, does not follow such a predictable pattern, appearing to have at least seven types of pulses.
“This diversity in the shape of the pulse, as well as the intensity of the pulse, is probably related to the unknown physical emission mechanism of the object,” Caleb wrote.
Caleb said the surprise finding was first detected from a single pulse that only lasted about 300 milliseconds but “was not like anything we had seen before.”
After that brief initial meeting, researchers from the MeerTRAP international team using the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa took a series of eight-second images that confirmed that the peculiar pulsar produced various types of pulses.
From these flashes, the team later deduced that the PSR J0901-4046 rotates much more slowly than other pulsars and, as such, represents “the beginning of a new class of neutron stars.” said Caleb, adding that it had “important implications for understanding.” how neutron stars are born and age “.
Caleb told Xinhua she was now sure of the existence of many more pulsars “out there.”
“It has given us a whole new field to explore … just look,” he said.
The findings of the MeerTRAP team were published in Nature Astronomy. Enditem