Rapidly spinning 'extreme' neutron star discovered by US Navy research intern

[Admin]

A Navy research team intern is part of a group of astronomers who have discovered a rapidly spinning neutron star, or "pulsar," in a dense cluster of stars around 10 light-years away.

Rapidly spinning 'extreme' neutron star discovered by US Navy research intern : Read more

 

[Unclear Engineer]

Wow, only 10.7 light-years away is pretty close. Considering that the pulsar must be the result of a supernova, I wonder if we can date when it happened and determine what effects it may have had on Earth.

I am somewhat surprised that it was not discovered sooner, considering its proximity to Earth.

 

[Jan Steinman]

their ultraprecise timing also means arrays of pulsars can be used as cosmic timepieces…

Elsewhere, I read that neutron stars randomly "glitch," which disturbs their precise timing, possibly due to "starquakes" or other disturbances.

How can a clock that randomly "glitches" truly be useful as a precision time piece?

 

[RobLea]

Not all pulsars glitch. Also scientists take a statistical average accross many pulsars to eliminate this. Also every measurement technique ever devised has a margin of error

 

[Classical Motion]

Each one sings an unique tune(different radio color), that's why they are good spacial beacons.

They will be fine for timing as long as they don't all glitch at the same time.

Using this kind of tech works both ways. It gives us advantage for navigation and backup.....and it verifies the location of those beacons. It won't be successful if not there. We'll get error.

Using this will probably allow us to fine tune those locations and possibly any change in them.

Is not application the ultimate study?

This is a great way to insure 24/7 monitoring of cosmological events and processes.