Astronomers have discovered a fascinating pulsar. It has been stealing matter from its companion star for decades, which it then releases in the form of some kind of “cosmic cannonballs”.
Pulsars are highly magnetized remnants of dead stars that release electromagnetic pulses at surprisingly regular intervals. But PSR J1023+0038, located about 4,500 light-years away in the constellation Sextant, has some unusual features that have caught the attention of astronomers.
It very specifically releases pulses with different levels of brightness, as if it can alternate between two “modes of functionality”.
An artist’s rendering of a pulsar stealing gas from its companion star
Extraordinary cosmic events
An international team of researchers finally concluded that PSR J1023+0038 is ejecting accreted matter stolen from its companion star. Researchers detected this activity in the form of millisecond radio waves with 12 different telescopes and other instruments.
“We have witnessed extraordinary cosmic events where huge amounts of matter, similar to cosmic cannonballs, have been launched into space in a very short time span (tens of seconds) from a small, dense object rotating at an incredibly high speed,” she stated lead study author Maria Cristina Baglio.
Indeed, the unusual pulsar appears to somehow switch between “high” and “low” modes: first it emits bright X-rays along with UV and visible light, before it dims significantly and emits radio waves. Each of these modes takes a few seconds to minutes, while switching from one to another only takes a few seconds.
2023-09-06 13:46:06
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