Taking the Crab's pulse.Sweeping beams of radiation from rapidly spinning stars called pulsars vary in intensity. No one knows why. Simultaneous recordings of the Crab pulsar's visible light, shown in these images to the right of another star, and its radio emissions may demystify de·mys·ti·fy tr.v. de·mys·ti·fied, de·mys·ti·fy·ing, de·mys·ti·fies To make less mysterious; clarify: an autobiography that demystified the career of an eminent physician. the phenomenon. When read left to right and top to bottom, the images show the pulsar pulsar, in astronomy, a neutron star that emits brief, sharp pulses of energy instead of the steady radiation associated with other natural sources. The study of pulsars began when Antony Hewish and his students at Cambridge Univ. reaching peak brightness toward the end of its 33-millisecond rotation. Each image was averaged over 500,000 rotations that were captured by a telescope in the Canary Islands. Andy Shearer of the National University of Ireland The constituent universities are for all essential purposes independent universities, except that the degrees and diplomas are those of the National University of Ireland with its seat in Dublin. in Galway and his colleagues determined, moreover, that brighter-than-normal peaks of light precede exceptionally powerful radio pulses. Whatever triggers the giant radio pulses apparently releases energy throughout the electromagnetic spectrum electromagnetic spectrum Total range of frequencies or wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation. The spectrum ranges from waves of long wavelength (low frequency) to those of short wavelength (high frequency); it comprises, in order of increasing frequency (or decreasing , the astronomers report in the July 25 Science. |
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