GSFC: Fireworks from Rare Stellar Encounter Predicted

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bystander
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GSFC: Fireworks from Rare Stellar Encounter Predicted

Post by bystander » Thu Jul 02, 2015 7:11 pm

Astronomers Predict Fireworks from Rare Stellar Encounter in 2018
NASA | Goddard Space Flight Center | 2015 July 02
Click to play embedded YouTube video.
Astronomers are gearing up for high-energy fireworks coming in early 2018, when a stellar remnant the size of a city meets one of the brightest stars in our galaxy. The cosmic light show will occur when a pulsar discovered by NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope swings by its companion star. Scientists plan a global campaign to watch the event from radio wavelengths to the highest-energy gamma rays detectable.

The pulsar, known as J2032+4127 (J2032 for short), is the crushed core of a massive star that exploded as a supernova. It is a magnetized ball about 12 miles across, or about the size of Washington, weighing almost twice the sun's mass and spinning seven times a second. J2032's rapid spin and strong magnetic field together produce a lighthouse-like beam detectable when it sweeps our way. Astronomers find most pulsars through radio emissions, but Fermi's Large Area Telescope (LAT) finds them through pulses of gamma rays, the most energetic form of light.

J2032 was found in 2009 through a so-called blind search of LAT data. Using this technique, astronomers can find pulsars whose radio beams may not be pointed precisely in our direction and are therefore much harder to detect. ...

The Binary Nature of PSR J2032+4127 - Andrew Lyne et al
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