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Pulsar Gets the Munchies, Snacks On an Asteroid

Posted by Soulskill on from the om-nom-nom dept.

astroengine writes "In research accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal, astronomers documented the anomalous spin rate of a pulsar that has been observed 'multiple times' between 1988 and 2012. In September 2005, the spin rate of the well-observed PSR J0738-4042 changed and a team of astronomers headed by Paul Brook, of the University of Oxford, think they know why. 'The data lead us to postulate that we are witnessing an encounter with an asteroid or in-falling debris from a disk,' they write in a paper published to the arXiv pre-print service. The moral of the story? It's not just black holes that get the asteroid munchies."

3 of 54 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I'm always impressed by barlevg · · Score: 2
    I agree with you that people erroneously assume that manned space exploration is done primarily for the purpose of scientific exploration. While it is certainly true--especially in previous eras--that exploration of our solar system is often best accomplished by intelligent and adaptable human beings as close to the "action" as possible, there's another reason why we need to develop capabilities for manned space flight: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xkj2lR9CT08

    Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics and you'll get ten different answers, but there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on. Whether it happens in a hundred years or a thousand years or a million years, eventually our Sun will grow cold and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us. It'll take Marilyn Monroe and Lao-Tzu, Einstein, Morobuto, Buddy Holly, Aristophanes .. and all of this .. all of this was for nothing unless we go to the stars.

  2. Re:Pulsars need to eat, too by phrostie · · Score: 5, Insightful

    all jokes aside, if something as simple as debris falling into the pulsar will change it's spin rate, then maybe using these for navigation isn't so reliable after all.

    just a thought.

  3. not surprising by slashmydots · · Score: 2

    If an asteroid "landed" on earth, it wouldn't go back up either. So yeah, this isn't terribly surprising that other massive bodies om nom nom asteroids too.