2023-04-18 13:16:59
The periodicity with which the pulsars emit their signals confused the scientists, to the point of believing that they were facing something alien.
The discovery of the pulsars takes place towards the end of the 60s. In 1967a graduate student named Jocelyn Bell he was working with his adviser, Anthony Hewish, at the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory, near Cambridge, UK. During the work they found a source of radio signals that were repeated every night. These came from the same place in the sky.
When Jocelyn Bell y Antony Hewish made this find, at first they believed it to be the first evidence of extraterrestrial life, as the signal was repeated with some regularity. However, in the observation processes, they soon found similar sources in other parts of the sky. The abundance of these emissions began to banish the first hypothesis. Despite this, the researchers knew they were dealing with something new: the pulsars.
What are pulsars?
According to Space.com, pulsars are neutron stars They spin rapidly and emit pulses of radiation at regular intervals ranging from seconds to milliseconds. These cosmic objects channel particles through the magnetic fields of their poles, accelerating them to relativistic speeds. From this activity are generated two beams of lightone for each pole.
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what at first puzzled scientists who discovered the pulsars was the periodicity with which its signals were reproduced. This is caused thanks to the fact that the light beams cross the line of sight of the Earth, but as soon as the luminosity moves away, it seems that it goes out, giving rise to those periods of the pulsar.
«PULSARS ARE SPECTACULAR OBJECTS IN THEMSELVES“THE MASS OF THE SUN INCLUDES A TINY BALL THE SIZE OF A CITY, ROLLING ON ITS AXIS, IN SOME CASES FASTER THAN A KITCHEN BLENDER, AND SWEEPING THE SKY WITH BEAMS OF RADIO WAVES,” HE EXPLAINED, TO LIVE SCIENCE, ANNE ARCHIBALD, PROFESSOR OF ASTRONOMY AT THE UNIVERSITY OF NEWCASTLE (UNITED KINGDOM).
This special kind of neutron stars emits at all wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation. However, Live Science points out, radio cells are the best at penetrating clouds of interstellar gas and dust in a Galaxy. Therefore, astronomers more easily appreciate distant objects in the radio spectrum, before in other parts.
The formation of a pulsar
The Pennsylvania State University indicates that, like any other neutron star, pulsars arise when a star with a mass between four and eight times that of the Sol runs out of fuel for nuclear fusion.
To this, Space.com adds that “when the fusion of elements into heavier ones stops, the production of energy that sustains the massive star once morest the internal pressure of its own enormous gravity. This way, the balance of the great body that is dying ends and begins its collapse.
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Arrived at the end of the process that gives rise to the pulsate, the newborn neutron star pulls material from its close binary companion. At that moment, the transfer donor angular momentumwhich gives way to the rotation from which it emerges.
To conclude, it is worth saying that although most of the neutron stars that have been discovered corresponds to the definition of a pulsar, not all of these objects are necessarily pulsars.
Taken from National Geographic in Spanish
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