The discovery of the new pulsar questions physical laws

2000/02/01 Elhuyar Zientzia Iturria: Elhuyar aldizkaria

• Astrofisika

An Australian astrophysicist discovers a celestial object that should not exist according to current physical theories using data from the Commonwealth Organization for Scientific and Industrial Research. This object is a neutron or pulsar star, an old star compacted by gravity and formed exclusively by neutrons.

This type of stars spin at high speed and is said to be lighthouses of the Universe, as they radiate energy around them with some frequency. The newly discovered pulsar turns every 8.51 seconds and that speed is too slow according to accepted physical theories. At that speed only the pulsars that are about to turn off and, in this case, cannot be captured from Earth because they emit little energy.