Artist impression of the 76s pulsar (in magenta) compared to other more rapidly spinning sources. Credit: Danielle Futselaar
An international team of astronomers has discovered a strange radio-emitting
The source was initially found from a single flash, or pulse, by the MeerTRAP instrument whilst piggybacking on imaging observations being led by a different team, ThunderKAT. MeerTRAP and ThunderKAT then worked closely together to puzzle out its origin. Combining the data from the two teams, it was then possible to confirm the pulsations and get an accurate position for the source, enabling detailed and more sensitive follow-up observations.
Neutron stars are extremely dense remnants of a supernova explosion of a massive star. They can produce beams of radio waves that sweep around the sky as the neutron star spins, producing regular flashes like cosmic lighthouses. Scientists currently know of about 3,000 of these in our own 
South Africa’s MeerKAT telescope. Credit: South African Radio Astronomy Observatory (SARAO)
Dr. Manisha Caleb, formerly from The University of Manchester and now at the University of Sydney, who led the research said: “Amazingly we only detect radio emission from this source for 0.5% of its rotation period. This means that it is very fortuitous that the radio beam intersected with the Earth. It is therefore likely that there are many more of these very slowly spinning sources in the Galaxy which has important implications for how neutron stars are born and age.
“The majority of
Dr. Manisha Caleb. Credit: University of Sydney
“The radio emission from this neutron star is unlike any we have ever seen before,” explained Professor Ben Stappers at The University of Manchester and Principal Investigator of the MeerTRAP project. “We get to view it for about 300 milliseconds, which is much longer than for the majority of other radio emitting neutron stars. There seem to be at least 7 different pulse types, some of which show strongly periodic structure, which could be interpreted as seismic vibrations of the neutron star. These pulses might be giving us vital insight into the nature of the emission mechanism for these sources.”
“The sensitivity that MeerKAT provides, combined with the sophisticated searching that was possible with MeerTRAP and an ability to make simultaneous images of the sky made this discovery possible. Even then it took an eagle eye to recognize it for something that was possibly a real source because it was so unusual looking!” said Dr. Ian Heywood from the ThunderKAT team and the
Reference: “Discovery of a radio-emitting neutron star with an ultra-long spin period of 76 s” by Manisha Caleb, Ian Heywood, Kaustubh Rajwade, Mateusz Malenta, Benjamin Willem Stappers, Ewan Barr, Weiwei Chen, Vincent Morello, Sotiris Sanidas, Jakob van den Eijnden, Michael Kramer, David Buckley, Jaco Brink, Sara Elisa Motta, Patrick Woudt, Patrick Weltevrede, Fabian Jankowski, Mayuresh Surnis, Sarah Buchner, Mechiel Christiaan Bezuidenhout, Laura Nicole Driessen and Rob Fender, 30 May 2022, Nature Astronomy.
DOI: 10.1038/s41550-022-01688-x