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Researchers using Arecibo Telescope discover never-before-seen pulsar blasts in Crab Nebula (Forwarded)



 
 
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Old January 9th 07, 01:43 AM posted to sci.space.news
Andrew Yee[_1_]
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Default Researchers using Arecibo Telescope discover never-before-seen pulsar blasts in Crab Nebula (Forwarded)

Press Relations Office
Cornell University
Ithaca, New York

Contact: Blaine Friedlander
Phone: (607)254-8093

FOR RELEASE: Jan. 8, 2006

Researchers using Arecibo Telescope discover never-before-seen pulsar blasts
in Crab Nebula

Bizarre emission spectrum leads to speculation: Is this a third magnetic
pole?

SEATTLE -- Astronomers and physicists using the Cornell-managed Arecibo
Telescope in Puerto Rico have discovered radio interpulses from the Crab
Nebula pulsar that feature never-before-seen radio emission spectra. This
leads scientists to speculate this could be the first cosmic object with a
third magnetic pole.

"We never see the strange frequency structure in the main pulse and we never
see the really short blasts in the interpulse," said Tim Hankins, acting
director of the Arecibo Observatory and a co-investigator on this research.
"We fully expected the main pulse and interpulse to be spectrally identical,
but what we found is that they are very different. This is the first time
seeing this in a pulsar."

Hankins, who also is an emeritus professor of physics at New Mexico Tech in
Socorro, N.M., will present a poster, "Radio Emission Signatures in the High
Frequency Interpulse of the Crab Pulsar," which he made with Jean Eilek, New
Mexico Tech professor of physics, on Jan. 8, 2007, at the American
Astronomical Society (AAS) convention in Seattle.

"This is a cool result," said Eilek. "The fact that the 'left hand' and the
'right hand' of the pulsar -- or the north and south magnetic poles -- don't
know what each other is doing, is very striking. It knocks just about every
existing theory of pulsar radio emission for a loop."

Because pulses from north and south poles should be identical, Eilek thinks
this strange radio emission might be coming from another part of the pulsar.
She speculates: "Maybe we've discovered an unknown, unexpected 'third
magnetic pole' somewhere else in the star."

Pulsars are important to understand as they allow physicists to confirm
Albert Einstein's Theory of Relativity. The magnetic and electrical fields
of pulsars are far stronger than any laboratory can generate, and Hankins
admits this is a difficult physics problem to understand.

In the case of the Crab Nebula pulsar, located in the constellation Taurus,
some 6,300 light years from Earth, the numbers boggle the mind: Plasma
clouds in the pulsar's atmosphere send out the radio emission blasts in
times as short as four-tenths of a nanosecond. This plasma cloud is smaller
than a soccer ball. During their short lifetimes, their blasts of radio
emission can be as powerful as 10 percent of the power of our sun.

"These strange emission features are not showing up in other pulsars," says
Eilek. The researchers have been using Arecibo on several observation
occasions, between 2004 and the present. They last conducted observations in
December 2006. "Maybe the magnetic field is not as simple as we think. Right
now, we're totally perplexed," she said.

New Mexico Tech students Jared Crossley, Eric Plum and James Sheckard
assisted in this research.

Cornell's National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center manages Arecibo
Observatory for the National Science Foundation, which funded this research.

EDITORS: Tim Hankins will report this research on Jan. 8 at a AAS press
conference at 12:30 p.m. PST, in Room 2B at the Washington State Convention
& Trade Center, 800 Convention Place, Seattle. To reach Hankins, please
contact Blaine Friedlander, of the Cornell University Press Relations Office
at (607) 351-2610.
 




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