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bananas

(27,509 posts) Fri Feb 21, 2014, 05:14 PM Feb 2014

Astronomers See Asteroids Hitting Distant Pulsar

Source: Sci-News.com

According to astronomers led by Mr Paul Brook, a PhD student from the University of Oxford and CSIRO, a small pulsar dubbed PSR J0738-4042 is being pounded by giant asteroids.

PSR J0738-4042 is located in the constellation of Puppis, about 37,000 light-years away.

The environment around this pulsar is especially harsh, full of radiation and violent winds of particles.

“If a large rocky object can form here, planets could form around any star. That’s exciting,” said Dr Ryan Shannon of CSIRO Astronomy and Space Science, who is the senior author of a paper published in the Astrophysical Journal Letters.

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Read more: http://www.sci-news.com/astronomy/science-asteroids-stant-pulsar-01776.html

2 replies

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Astronomers See Asteroids Hitting Distant Pulsar (Original Post) bananas Feb 2014 OP

Amazing stuff! Octafish Feb 2014 #1

Sometimes Puppis do the pummeling. valerief Feb 2014 #2

Octafish

(55,745 posts)

1. Amazing stuff!

Reply to bananas (Original post)

Fri Feb 21, 2014, 05:17 PM

Feb 2014

From Sci-News:

PSR J0738-4042 emits a beam of radio waves. As it spins, its radio beam flashes over Earth again and again with the regularity of a clock.

In 2008, the astronomers predicted how an infalling asteroid would affect a pulsar.

“It would alter the slowing of the pulsar’s spin rate and the shape of the radio pulse that we see on Earth. That is exactly what we see in this case,” Dr Shannon said.

“One of these rocks seems to have had a mass of about a billion tones.”

“We think the pulsar’s radio beam zaps the asteroid, vaporizing it. But the vaporized particles are electrically charged and they slightly alter the process that creates the pulsar’s beam.”

valerief

(53,235 posts)

2. Sometimes Puppis do the pummeling.

Reply to bananas (Original post)

Fri Feb 21, 2014, 05:19 PM

Feb 2014

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