Pulsars were first discovered in late 1967 by graduate student Jocelyn Bell Burnell as radio sources that blink on and off at a constant frequency. Now we observe the brightest ones at almost every wavelength of light. Pulsars are spinning neutron stars that have jets of particles moving almost at the speed of light streaming out above their magnetic poles. These jets produce very powerful beams of light. For a similar reason that "true north" and "magnetic north" are different on Earth, the magnetic and rotational axes of a pulsar are also misaligned. Therefore, the beams of light from the jets sweep around as the pulsar rotates, just as the spotlight in a lighthouse does. Like a ship in the ocean that sees only regular flashes of light, we see pulsars turn on and off as the beam sweeps over the Earth. Neutron stars for which we see such pulses are called "pulsars", or sometimes "spin-powered pulsars," indicating that the source of energy is the rotation of the neutron star.
ok, i'm sure this is somewhere else also, but why are we looking for pulsars?
My basic understanding is that pulsars are a theorised source of gravity waves, therefore searching for them by means of a gravity wave detector (the output of which we are analysing) will give evidence for the existance and detectability of gravity waves.
Once gravity waves have been directly detected from a source we understand we can then expand our knowledge by searching for other objects with the gravity wave detector and hopefully discover more about the cosmos through it.
For example when spectroscopy was developed it furthered our understanding of the composition of stars for example (i.e. how much of each element is in the star etc). I imagine that a breakthrough of similar importance is expected from the development of gravity wave astronomy...assuming our current model of gravity waves is correct and we do indeed find something.
Can somebody fill me in on what the project has done so far?
)
I just joined a few weeks ago and was wanting to know what has been discovered so far and what the project is working on now.
Look here:
http://einsteinathome.org/node/189135
And somewhere there is a promise of Bruce Allen to inform us within the next days/weeks.
Keep on Crunching!
Thanks for that, but i have
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Thanks for that, but i have another question that is most likely somewhere else also: what is a pulsar?
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what is a pulsar?
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Here's one link. :)
So we are looking for stars?
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So we are looking for stars?
Pulsars were first discovered
)
Pulsars were first discovered in late 1967 by graduate student Jocelyn Bell Burnell as radio sources that blink on and off at a constant frequency. Now we observe the brightest ones at almost every wavelength of light. Pulsars are spinning neutron stars that have jets of particles moving almost at the speed of light streaming out above their magnetic poles. These jets produce very powerful beams of light. For a similar reason that "true north" and "magnetic north" are different on Earth, the magnetic and rotational axes of a pulsar are also misaligned. Therefore, the beams of light from the jets sweep around as the pulsar rotates, just as the spotlight in a lighthouse does. Like a ship in the ocean that sees only regular flashes of light, we see pulsars turn on and off as the beam sweeps over the Earth. Neutron stars for which we see such pulses are called "pulsars", or sometimes "spin-powered pulsars," indicating that the source of energy is the rotation of the neutron star.
ok, i'm sure this is
)
ok, i'm sure this is somewhere else also, but why are we looking for pulsars?
ok, i'm sure this is
)
ok, i'm sure this is somewhere else also, but why are we looking for pulsars?
My basic understanding is that pulsars are a theorised source of gravity waves, therefore searching for them by means of a gravity wave detector (the output of which we are analysing) will give evidence for the existance and detectability of gravity waves.
Once gravity waves have been directly detected from a source we understand we can then expand our knowledge by searching for other objects with the gravity wave detector and hopefully discover more about the cosmos through it.
For example when spectroscopy was developed it furthered our understanding of the composition of stars for example (i.e. how much of each element is in the star etc). I imagine that a breakthrough of similar importance is expected from the development of gravity wave astronomy...assuming our current model of gravity waves is correct and we do indeed find something.