PSR J0737-3039A/B - Precessions, Pulsars And Wobbling In Space

If you're a long-time reader of this site, you might get the idea that Albert Einstein was a pretty smart guy - that comes across because he tends to proven right a lot even today. PSR J0737-3039A/B is a unique system of two dead stars, pulsars, and one of the pair is 'wobbling' in space just like a spinning top, according to a team of researchers. The effect, called precession, was predicted by Albert Einstein and is yet another confirmation of his theory. The binary pulsars were formed when a pair of massive stars exploded and their cores collapsed to create objects whose mass is greater than that of our Sun, but compressed to the size of a city. They are spinning at incredible speeds and emit powerful beams of radio waves which sweep across our radio-telescopes like cosmic lighthouses producing regular pulses of energy - hence their name, pulsars. PSR J0737-3039A/B is the only known system in our galaxy where two pulsars are locked into such close orbit around one another - the entire system could fit inside our Sun. Read More...

Read the whole article on Scientific Blogging

More from Scientific Blogging

Related