[moose07]

A pulsar is a small but improbably dense neutron star - the collapsed remnant of a supernova.

“They pack more mass than our Sun has in a sphere that’s only 10 miles across,” said the study’s lead author Joeri van Leeuwen, from the Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy (Astron).

When they occur as binaries, neutron stars come hard up against Einstein’s theory of general relativity, and should generate space-time ripples called gravitational waves, which astronomers hope one day to detect.

{snip} When locked in a binary system, a pulsar slowly loses energy and its orbit shrinks “That was a real Eureka moment that night,” he told journalists at the conference.

{snip} They soon discovered the pulsar had a companion star, and that it was pushing the boundaries of what astronomers know of these bizarre systems.

The pair circle each other in just four hours - the second fastest such orbit ever seen - and the pulsar spins seven times per second, sweeping its two beams of radio waves across space to Earth.

[left that other site]

Ping!

[freedumb2003]

>>”bent time”<<

That was how I spent most of my college life...

[dangus]

While the physics involved are nothing short of amazing, the effects aren’t quite as other-worldly as the article makes it seem. Pulsars shoot enormous streams of light and energy out from two ends, but are otherwise very tiny. So to be seen, the streams have to be pointed straight at us. When they do point straight at us, the star’s incredibly fast spin carries them away from us and back to us very quickly. Hence, they appear to pulse. This pulsar is simply spinning in a second direction a little, so we’re no longer lined up with the streams of energy.

[cripplecreek]

Pulsar sounds.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uHEVo-LkDrQ

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb0P6x_xDEU

[OldNavyVet]

Moving away from Earth faster than the speed of light?

Makes sense to me.

[Darksheare]

It didn’t vanish, I stole it!

[outofsalt]

I had a pulsar in the late 70's which bent time.

Actually, I wish I hadn't thrown it away.

[I want the USA back]

Interesting. Since space is what’s between objects, (space is not an object) it’s difficult to see how space can be bent.

[The Cajun]

The pair circle each other in just four hours - the second fastest such orbit ever seen - and the pulsar spins seven times per second,

Those two suckers have it "hooked up" pretty good, cosmologically speaking :)

[Snickering Hound]

[Calvin Locke]

Hmmm, a point on the pulsar’s equator travels then @ ...10mi diameter x pi x 7 rotations/sec * 3600 secs = 791,280 mph.

Compare to Earth’s 1000 mph, or the Moon’s paltry 10 mph.

[Rockpile]

Feringi stole the thing and sold it.