Posted on 01/18/2006 1:06:59 AM PST by neverdem
ASSOCIATED PRESS
CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- Astronomers using the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia have discovered a superbubble, the fastest-spinning pulsar ever observed and a magnetic field that resembles a Slinky.
The National Radio Astronomy Observatory announced the discoveries last week during an American Astronomical Society meeting in Washington, D.C. The observatory is located in Pocahontas County.
The superbubble of hydrogen gas rises 10,000 light years above the Milky Way's plane.
Astronomer Jay Lockman said it is not unusual for hydrogen gas to be driven outward from the Milky Way's plane. But he said whatever drove the superbubble out must have been unusually violent.
"Finding this superbubble practically in our back yard is quite exciting, because these superbubbles are very important factors in how galaxies evolve," Lockman said.
The pulsar was found in a globular cluster of stars called Terzan 5 in the constellation Sagittarius, about 28,000 light years from Earth. It spins 716 times per second, said Jason Hessels, a graduate student at McGill University in Montreal and a member of the research team that discovered the fast-spinning "millisecond" pulsar.
At that speed, the pulsar could not be more than 20 miles in diameter, Hessels and his colleagues contend.
"If it were any larger, material from the surface would be flung into orbit around the star," said Hessels.
Pulsars are spinning neutron stars that sling beams of radio waves or light around as they spin. Pulsars are left after massive stars explode, the NRAO said.
Thirty-three fast-spinning "millisecond" pulsars have been found in the same star cluster.
The coil-shaped magnetic field was found wrapped around a gas cloud in the constellation Orion.
"You can think of this structure as a giant, magnetic Slinky wrapped around a long, finger-like interstellar cloud," said Timothy Robishaw, a graduate student in astronomy at the University of California at Berkeley. "The magnetic field lines are like stretched rubber bands the tension squeezes the cloud into its filamentary shape."
The Green Bank telescope, at 100 meters in diameter, is the world's largest steerable radio telescope.
On the Net:
National Radio Astronomy Observatory: http://www.nrao.edu
Information from: The Charleston Gazette, http://www.wvgazette.com
That would be about 43,000 rpm.
Faster than my mototool.
Teddy Kennedy eating beans and cabbage again?
Do not make fun of Happy Super Bubble.
D U D E !
Is the Super Bubble any relation to The Dirty Bubble?
I'll bet this guy would put a stop to that..
It's only fitting to honor those responsible in naming the discovery ... the Robert C. Byrd Superbubble.
You are too kind to them. All Democrats are Constitutional perverts. Considering their moral perversions, their sexual perversions and their Constitutional perversion, does that make the Democratic Party the party of perverts? Or a perverted party?
and the mass of this thing is several times the mass of our entire solar system. All the planets, the sun, astroids, comets... all of it. It's mind boggling...
Everything in WVA has his name on it. They'll be voting for him 25 years after he's dead.
Too bad we can't get a hold of that Hydrogen.
We could solve the energy problem and satisfy the enviroweenies on one fell swoop...
You've got to be kidding me...they named a friggin' TELESCOPE after this guy? Why on Earth do West Virginians worship this left-wing Klansman so much?
And 25 years after THEY'RE dead...
LOL
Of course, if WVA could just put this man out to pasture, it would stop. But that's another issue.
The guy's what, like 89?? Is he trying to break Thurmond's record or what?
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