There are some strange objects lurking in our galaxy, and astronomers have just spied an extreme new candidate roughly 3,000 to 4,000 light-years away.
Pulsars are incredible heavenly bodies.
Behold: the most powerful searchlights in the universe.
Astronomers have carried out a multiwavelength investigation of a pulsar wind nebula (PWN), designated DA 495, to unveil its mysterious physical nature. Results of the study, based on observations using HAWC and VERITAS ground-based observatories as well as NASA’s NuSTAR spacecraft, are presented in a paper published May 17 on arXiv.org.
NASA engineers have successfully demonstrated X-ray navigation in space — a capability that could revolutionize NASA’s ability in the future to pilot robotic spacecraft to the far reaches of our Solar System and beyond.
Astronomers have recently identified a peculiar bubble-like structure associated with an energetic pulsar known as PSR J1015−5719. The newly found feature, designated G283.1−0.59, is most likely a polar wind nebula. The findings were presented June 9 in a paper published on the arXiv pre-print server.
It’s a case of pulsar ping-pong. Repeating radio bursts from space may be the result of pulsars colliding with asteroids in faraway stellar systems.
