Pulsars are usually neutron stars, but we now know they can also be a white dwarf.
To Boldly Go
If you’re the captain of a starship exploring the galaxy, how do you find your way home?
Double Pulsar Confirms Relativity
A system known as J0737-3039 confirms general relativity to within 0.04%.
The Crab Nebula
The Crab Nebula is the remnant of a supernova that occurred in 1054 AD.
How Do You Weigh A Neutron Star?
New work in Science Advances has found an interesting way to determine the mass of a type of neutron star known as a pulsar.
Closest Approach
Cue the dramatic music. A pulsar will be making a close approach to a star in 2018.
Run Silent, Run Deep
The pulsar J1906+0746 has gone silent, and that’s good news for general relativity.
Finding a Pulse
An ultraluminous x-ray source (ULX) is an intense, localized sources of x-rays. They are generally powered by solar-mass black holes, similar to the way quasars and blazars are powered by supermassive black holes. We’ve generally thought only black holes could provide enough power to generate such powerful x-rays, but now it seems that isn’t always the case. New results have been published in Nature that show some of them might be powered by accreting neutron stars.
Highland Fling
Yesterday I talked about millisecond pulsars, and the way in which they might gain such rapid rotation. Another property of millisecond pulsars is that they demonstrate very clearly that pulsars are neutron stars. It all has to do with their rapid rotation and the physics of centripetal (or centrifugal) force.