pulsars

A rendering that is part of an animation of a Black Widow pulsar burning up its companion. Credit: NASA Goddard Spaceflight Center / Cruz deWilde

Webb found a planet that shouldn't exist – and it's made almost entirely of carbon

Webb finds planet with carbon atmosphere orbiting pulsar, challenging current models of planet formation
ASKAP J1832 belongs to a rare group of objects in space that pulsate in radio waves every few tens of minutes, but what makes it unique is its emission in X-rays as well, as detected by NASA's powerful X-ray observatory, Chandra. This is the first time that X-ray signals have been observed from this type of object, known as "long-period radio phenomena." Credit: X-ray: NASA/CXC/ICRAR, Curtin Univ./Z. Wang et al.; Infrared: NASA/JPL/CalTech/IPAC; Radio: SARAO/MeerKAT; Image processing: NASA/CXC/SAO/N. Wolk

A new mystery in the galaxy's sky: a star that emits radio waves and X-rays at an extremely slow rate

A star called ASKAP J1832 pulsates in both radio and X-rays every 44 minutes—a frequency much slower than any pulsar ever recorded. This unprecedented phenomenon hints at a

Astronomers have discovered potential dark matter objects in space using pulsars

These pulsars—neutron stars that rotate and emit beacon-like beams of radio waves that scan space—have been used to detect mysterious hidden masses.
This artist impression shows the pulsar PSR J1023+0038 stealing gas from its companion star. This gas accumulates in the disk around the pulsar, slowly falls into it and is eventually ejected in a narrow jet. In addition, there is a wind of particles blowing from the pulsar, represented in the figure by a cloud of very small dots. This wind collides with the gas falling in, heating it and causing the system to glow brightly in X-rays, UV and visible light. Eventually clumps of this hot gas are ejected with the jet, and the pulsar returns to its initial, weaker state, and repeats the cycle. This pulsar has been observed to continuously switch between these two states every few seconds or minutes. Credit: ESO/M. Kornmesser

Cosmic Shells: Solving the Mystery of Strange Pulsar Brightness Changes

Astronomers have deciphered the strange behavior of the pulsar J1023+0038. This pulsar, which rapidly transitions between two brightness states, emits material in sudden bursts that cause these transitions. Thanks to this breakthrough, which included observations and analyses
An artist's rendering of a collection of pulsars detecting gravitational waves from pairs of orbiting supermassive black holes. Credit: Aurore Simonnet for the NANOGrav Collaboration

Proof that the Earth is surrounded by a sea of ​​slow gravitational waves

"The effect of gravitational waves on pulsars is very weak and difficult to detect, but we built the credibility of the findings over time as we collected more data," said Caterina Cazziano, NANOGrav team member and senior lecturer at Caltech.
Impressively, a pair of supermassive black holes (top left) emit gravitational waves that propagate through the fabric of space-time. These gravitational waves compress and stretch the trajectories of radio waves that emit pulsars (in white). By carefully measuring the radio waves, a team of scientists recently discovered for the first time the gravitational wave background of the universe. Credit: Aurore Simonnet for the NANOGrav Collaboration

Noisier than expected: Gravitational waves from supermassive black hole mergers "heard" for the first time

NANOGrav Discovers Stronger Gravitational Waves Than Ever, Apparently Created by Pairs of Supermassive Black Holes
Credit: Breakthrough Listen / Danielle Futselaar

SETI searches for technology signatures: The hunt for extraterrestrial signals at the heart of the Milky Way begins

Akshay Suresh, a graduate student at Cornell University, is leading an unusual scientific activity - a groundbreaking mission called BLIPSS to detect periodic signals emanating from the center of the Milky Way