Astronomers Find Brightest Pulsar Ever Observed

An anonymous reader writes: Astronomers using the Chandra X-ray Observatory and the NuSTAR satellite have discovered a pulsar so bright that it challenges how scientists think pulsars work. While observing galaxy M82 in hopes of spotting supernovae, the researchers found an unexpected source of X-rays very close to the galaxy's core. It was near another source, thought to be a black hole. But the new one was pulsing, which black holes don't do. The trouble is that according to known pulsar models, it's about 100 times brighter than the calculated limits to its luminosity (abstract). Researchers used a different method to figure out its mass, and the gap shrank, but it's still too bright to fit their theories.

Comments

Re:Who cares

[TheCarp]

Perhaps because the people who find them interesting are smart enough not to comment? I mean, you come out and talk about politics and frankly, the people who do it professionally are hardly experts compared to the common man the way astronomers and astrophysicists are.

I mean, I have only read a couple of articles and bullshit on here about red light cameras. I suspect the average professional politicians know only a scant amount more about them than I do, if anything the main "gap" in my knwoledge is the names and faces of the people who peddle them.

The gap between the average idiot and the politician is a hares breath compared to that between even an above average idiot and an astrophysicist on the subject of astrophysics.

Even now, shit, I eat stuff like this up. This is a cool finding.....but....fuck if I don't have anything to add, so I comment on the comment about comments, because that....I am much closer to an expert on :)