14 DAY TRIAL // An international collaboration of astronomers announce the discovery of an object that could very well be the fastest-moving pulsar ever found. Experts had to use data from three telescopes and several surveys to identify the celestial body.
A pulsar is a special type of neutron star. The latter are formed from the collapse of massive stars that do not have sufficient initial mass to turn into black holes. What separates a pulsar from an average neutron star is the orientation of its poles in relation to Earth.
Some of these collapsed stars have their poles oriented towards our planet, so our telescopes see the radiations they emit as the body spins. In some cases, the pulsars spin so fast that they look like an out-of-control cosmic lighthouse, hence their names.
The new investigation was focused on the supernova remnant known as SNR MSH 11-16A, which was produced after a massive star exploded at the end of its burning cycle. The event was so powerful that the surrounding area was heated up to millions of degrees Kelvin.
The object was observed using the NASA Chandra X-ray Observatory, the European Space Agency's (ESA) XMM-Newton telescope and the Parkes radio telescope, in Australia. Infrared data from the 2MASS project and optical data from the Digitized Sky Survey were also included in the research.
In the image to the left, Chandra data are color-coded green, XMM-Newton data appear in purple, and data from 2MASS and DSS appear in white. This photograph is one of the most important pieces of evidence supporting the belief that this is the fastest-moving pulsar ever discovered.
Details of the new investigation appear in the May 10 issue of the esteemed Astrophysical Journal Letters. The team behind the work features experts from University of California Berkeley (UCB), University of Paris, Columbia University and the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.
According to the research paper, the pulsar itself is racing away from the center of the supernova remnant where it was crated at a speed of several million miles per hour. This is made obvious by the fact that it has a 3-light-year-long radiation trail, astrophysicists reveal.
SNR MSH 11-16A is estimated to lie about 30,000 light-years from Earth, which is relatively close in astronomical terms. The international research group says that the pulsar itself is around 15,000 years old.