Despite being very bright, this pulsar is surprisingly hard to find.
REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, JAKARTA — Astronomers have discovered what may be called the brightest pulsar in the sky. Despite the bright light, pulsars were not found for a long time. This pulsar was only discovered thanks to a telescope equipped with cosmic “sunglasses”.
Pulsars are neutron star which produces a beam of radiation from the poles. Pulsars produce light as they pass through Earth. This pulsar is blinking rapidly. The found pulsars only blink for a few seconds or milliseconds. It is because of this short blinking time that it makes it quite easy to notice in space.
PSR J05237125 is the name of pulsar newly discovered. This pulsar flashes three times per second and is located in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a dwarf galaxy orbiting the Milky Way. This pulsar is also 10 times brighter than previous pulsars found outside our galaxy. PSR J05237125 rival the brightest pulsar found in it.
But how did the pulsar go undetected for so long if it was so bright? According to the researchers, this pulsar has strange properties that keep it hidden. The radiation beam is quite wide, which means that pulsars stay “on” much longer than regular pulsars.
The pulsar was detected using the ASKAP radio telescope in Australia. This radio telescope uses a filter similar to sunglasses. Pulsars emit highly polarized light that is indistinguishable from ordinary light into most equipment due to their extremely large magnetic field.
Astronomers found a highly polarized object in the Large Magellanic Cloud that changed its brightness for months while reviewing ASKAP data.
Subsequent investigations with various instruments revealed that there was no object in the X-ray, optical, or infrared wavelengths. However, it was eventually identified as a unique pulsar by the MeerKAT radio telescope in South Africa.
“We should expect to find more pulsars using this technique,” said Professor Tara Murphy, lead author of the study.
“This is the first time we have been able to search for pulsar polarization systematically and routinely. Due to its unusual nature, this pulsar has been missed by previous studies, even though it is very bright,” he explained.
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