Washington, Nov 4 (ANI): Astronomers have discovered the first gamma-ray pulsar in a globular cluster of stars around 27,000 light years away.
It is the farthest pulsar found so far.
Moreover, its high luminosity indicates that J1823-3021A is the youngest millisecond pulsar found to date, and that its magnetic field is much stronger than theoretically predicted.
Paulo Freire and an international team of scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy in Bonn discovered it using the Fermi space telescope.
"The high sensitivity of the Fermi telescope has now enabled us to track down a millisecond pulsar by its gamma radiation as well for the first time," said Paulo Freire from the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy.
The researchers have been able to find a total of six pulsars in this globular cluster; J1823-3021A was the first.
Millisecond pulsars have an extremely high rotational stability - even on long time scales; their cycle accuracy is comparable with that of the best atomic clocks on Earth.
They are like huge flywheels in space, and hardly anything can affect their rotation.
These objects can assist scientists to test the General Theory of Relativity; they can also be used in the search for gravitational waves and to analyse the properties of the superdense matter in the pulsar. (ANI)
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