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The discovery of pulsars in 1967 was a complete surprise. Antony Hewish and his student Jocelyn Bell (later Bell Burnell) were operating a large radio antenna in Cambridge, England, when they detected a celestial source of radio waves that pulsed every 1.3373 seconds. Never before had a star or galaxy, or any other astronomical phenomenon, been observed to tick like a clock.
Hewish and Bell considered a number of exotic explanations for the speed and regularity of the pulsing radio source, including the possibility that it was a beacon from an extraterrestrial civilization. Within a few years, the correct explanation emerged, which is no less exotic. A pulsar is a city-sized spinning ball of ultradense material that emits beams of radiation, which flash Earth-like lighthouse beams, as it spins.
How Pulsars Are Created
Pulsars are produced when certain types of stars stop producing energy and collapse. The attractive force of...
This section contains 1,118 words (approx. 4 pages at 300 words per page) |
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