Double Pulsar System Found

[Lionel]

An international team of scientists from the UK, Australia, Italy and the USA have announced in today's issue of the journal Science Express [ 8th January 2004 ] the first discovery of a double pulsar system.They have shown that the compact object orbiting the 23-millisecond pulsar PSR J0737-3039A with a period of just 2.4 hours is not only, as suspected, another neutron star but is also a detectable pulsar, PSR J0737-3039B, that is rotating once every 2.8 seconds.Professor Andrew Lyne of the University of Manchester points out that "While experiments on one pulsar in such an extreme system as this are exciting enough, the discovery of two pulsars orbiting one another opens up new precision tests of general relativity and the probing of pulsar magnetospheres."The same team previously reported [Nature 4th December 2003], the discovery of pulsar A in a close binary system which is rapidly losing energy by gravitational radiation. The stars will coalesce in only approximately 85 million years, sending a ripple of gravity waves across the Universe.

The discovery of the system shows that such coalescences will occur more frequently than previously thought. "The news has been welcomed by gravitational wave hunters, since it boosts their hopes for detecting the gravitational waves" says Prof. Nichi D'Amico of Cagliari University.

View: Full Article | Source: Royal Astronomical Socitey