While studying the globelike supernova remnant, astronomers discovered a new pulsar, PSR J1841-0500.
After shining for at least a year, the pulsar, located inside the white circle, abruptly disappeared.
The left image was provided by the Multi-Array Galactic Plane Imaging Survey, the right by CHANDRA.
CREDIT: Shami Chatterjee
Pulsars are fast-spinning stars that emit regular beams of light known for their clocklike regularity. So, when one strangely turned off for a year and a half, astronomers were surprised to find that this abnormality could help them solve the longstanding mystery of what makes these flashing stars tick.
Despite more than forty years of study, astronomers still can't nail down what causes these rapidly rotating stars to pulse but when one, called PSR J1841, turned off for 580 days, it gave astronomers a glimpse of how pulsars behave when they can't be seen.
In December 2008, Fernando Camilo, of Columbia University in New York, was using the Parkes telescope in Australia to search for a known object when he found a steadily flashing star in his field of view.
He quickly identified it as a pulsar that was spinning once every 0.9 seconds, a fairly standard rotation.
"I wasn't too excited," Camilo admitted.
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