Astronomers have discovered an unusual pulsar

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Астрономы обнаружили необычный пульсарPulsars are known to be extremely dense neutron stars.

Two rather strange celestial bodies, neutron stars B1859+07 and B0919+06 may be the most “clingy friends”, all linked with each other space objects known to scientists-astronomers.

The circulation period of these extremely dense stars is only a few minutes, they and their companions are closer to each other than any of the other famous pairs, and this may serve to explain the strange “whistling” that periodically appear in the signals of these binary pulsars.

Pulsars are known to be extremely dense neutron stars, the remnants after supernova explosions, rotating around its axis at a certain speed. These pulsars radiate in space the radio waves of a certain frequency and relatively high stability. However, in the 1990’s, astronomer Joanna Rankin (Rankin Joanna) from the University of Vermont (University of Vermont), I noticed that the pulsar B0919+06 is periodically emits a “whistling” (distorted) signal, the shape and the repetition period of which after time returns to normal.

This anomaly, scientists assumed to be a manifestation of instrumental errors in the receiving equipment of the radio telescope. But after we found another “whistling” pulsar B1859+07, the researchers noticed this effect more attention, studied all available data and made several assumptions about the nature of the observed effect.

Under these assumptions, the cause of the distortion signal may be the presence near a massive object, the second object orbiting the first. Naturally, the second small object completely invisible on the background of the larger first, and its presence can only be judged by changes in the shape of signals that occur when this second object, moving at a speed equal to a significant portion of the speed of light, crosses the main magnetic field of the pulsar.

The second small object needs to be something special that he could withstand the gravitational forces of the main pulsar. “It must be something incredibly dense to ensure that it could remain intact in this region of space,” says Joanna Rankin, – “even an ordinary block of stone would have been there in the finest powder.”

Of the proposed options the nature of “satellite” of the pulsar, the scientists see a miniature black hole and, most likely, a small lump of matter, which consists of white dwarf stars. Scientists have already met white dwarfs which are companions of neutron stars, but in all cases their periods of revolution amounted to a few hours. Recently also discovered the binary system can be in the late stages of her life, when the white dwarf has almost approached the point, the inevitable collision with the Central pulsar.

“We put forward the theory is still very crude,” says Joanna Rankin, “the Probability of existence of the pulsar such a close companion sounds so crazy, that we believe this theory is just the latest of the possible today”. Joanna Rankin and her team believe that the work they have done to attract the attention of other groups of scientists who will be able to develop other mathematical models to explain the periodic occurrence of “whistle” in the radiation of the pulsar. In addition, knowing about the existence of this unusual phenomenon, astronomers working at many radio telescopes, will not leave it without attention if they manage to catch a whistling signal.

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