A radio telescope that had retired from its missile tracking days helped researchers observe how a young neutron star evolves.
The Crab Pulsar was quiet the spectacle back in its day (AD 1054). Its explosive formation could have been seen in Europe and China at the time, and would have appeared as a blazing star visible in the daytime sky, a University of Manchester news release reported.
The star rotates at 30 times a second and emits radio waves "like a lighthouse." These beams send out a flash of light every time the object rotates.
"The Crab pulsar is iconic; it is seen across the entire electromagnetic spectrum and is an exemplar and so this result provides vital clues about how these cosmic lighthouses shine and explaining a long-standing mystery about the way pulsars slow down over time," Doctor Patrick Weltevrede, of The University of Manchester, said.
The pulsar is only about 15 miles across, but has a staggering mass equivalent to a million Earths.
Researchers have been watching the Crab Pulsar's flashes of light change over the past 22 years, this has helped the team learn more about its magnetic field.
"The pulsar is just 960 years old, so while 22 years gives only a small sample of its lifetime, it is a much larger fraction of a stellar lifetime than astronomers usually get to study," study leader Andrew Lyne, an Emeritus Professor at Manchester, said.
The team has observed that the flashes come in pairs, and the spacing between theses pairs is increasing by 0.6 degrees per century. The researchers believe this is because the object's pole is moving towards its equator.
The telescope has been pointed at the pulsar for 31 years, it has rotated 30 billion times since observations began.
"It is amazing to think that this relatively small missile-tracking telescope, installed in Australia in 1974 by Marconi and donated to the Jodrell Bank Observatory in 1981 where it was converted to observe pulsars, has proved to be such a boon to astronomers. This is a real sword to ploughshare concept in action," Doctor Christine Jordan, who helps keep the telescope and observations running at Jodrell Bank, said.
