Students Discover Millisecond Pulsar?

--------- #1396 - High School Students Discover Pulsar

- Attachments : Pulsar

- Some high school students in Kentucky and Virginia discovered a Millisecond Pulsar. They were part of project called the Pulsar Search Collaboratory. The students were trained by astronomers on how to use the Green Bank Telescope. After 300 hours of observing data the students discovered 4 Pulsars and one Millisecond Pulsar

- The Millisecond Pulsar is a very important discovery because its spin is so accurate it is more accurate than any atomic clock. It is hoped that by timing several of these Millisecond Pulsars across the sky astronomers can detect Gravity Waves. They would act like buoys bobbing up and down as the gravity waves pass by. The wave disturbance would be detected as very small changes in the pulse arrival times as the waves pass by.

- Pulsars are spinning neutron stars that rotate a beam of radio waves around as they spin like a lighthouse rotates a beam of light. A Neutron Star is what is left after a massive star explodes as a supernova. The central star core is left with no nuclear fuel to prevent the crushing force of gravity collapsing the very elements that are left. The electrons collapse into the nuclei creating neutrons. The core is so dense that one tablespoon would weigh 10 million tons.

- There is a special class of Pulsars that spin very fast. This one the students discovered on January 17, 2012, is spinning at 324 rotations per second. The rotation rate is so accurate the passing beam can be used as a metronome of an atomic clock.

- Einstein predicted the existence of gravitational waves in the fabric of space time in the early 1900’s. But, they have never been detected. Millisecond Pulsars may be the key to determine if Einstein was right, again.

- To learn more about the PSC project :
http://www.gb.nrao,edu/epo/psc.shtml