Radio telescope finds another mystery long-repeat source
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How about this? This is a black-hole/neutron-star near critical mass and companion/accretion disk with uneven consumption. Since it also sheds mass through Hawking radiation, the pulsar could pop back into existence. And I guess time-dilation to explain the slow radio bursts. Obvs don't know what I'm talking about, but maybe fun anyway?
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Are you accusing me of having copied this article from some other source?
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Possibly it was another "joke" following the click bait one. If so, I don't get this one either, so maybe not.
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If you did copy it from someone else can you please share your source? I'd like to add more competent science writers to my reading schedule.
kthx
/s (well, actually, totally serious if you did plagiarize this, but I don't think that for a second).
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Pulsar which emits a beam that normally does not point at us, but nearly does so, orbiting a black hole. When the pulsar is on the far side the gravitational field of the black hole deflects the beam just enough for us to see it. This would I expect spread out the pulse slightly in time as it would deflect the beam towards us a little even when the pulsar is a little further ahead or behind being closest to the line from the Earth to the black hole.
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This isn't really a thing; mostly an "axis of rotation" is defined as a unit vector aligned with the angular velocity vector, which is in turn defined by looking at how the orientation of a body changes over time. Thus, there can only ever be one axis at any given time. The axis can, of course, change over time (by changing the angular velocity vector).
I suspect the challenge with these types of objects is that, since they are (more or less) mass-symmetric, the angular velocity aligns with the angular momentum; and changing the angular momentum requires moments. Large bodies, require large moments, which I suspect is why it is improbable here.
Full disclosure, I know about rigid body mechanics, a star is obviously not very rigid, so there may be other interesting things. (Aside -- asymmetric bodies with no external moments can change their axes of rotation, for example this T-handle on the ISS
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1n-HMSCDYtM
)
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Would that suggest it "wobbles" in some way? Or its magnetic pole doss?
Edit: never mind, lots of discussion on it
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Their other extremely downvoted comment, accusing the writer of plagiarism, indicates they are not joking.
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So your intention is to free the Hive Mind to contemplate its true meaning.We had the same idea at the same time, clearly we're on to something here. Ars Astrophysics Directorate, roll out!
On the serious side what if it wasn't a neutron star.
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Given the slow rotational period and the situation you present how has the the neutron star not been absorbed by the black hole already. It;s late, I'm hungry and feel my meds taking over thus thinking is getting difficult .back later
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I clicked into the comment section to speculate this, but I see I'm beaten to it.
On the other hand, it seems like something that must have already occurred to experts if it occurred to me, unless there was an obvious-to-them reason it wouldn't work.
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hellonearthis
Smack-Fu Master, in training
The star might not round like a ball but could be egg shaped and the poles might not be aligned with the egg.
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Space is so awesome. Seems like every month there is a new "uh... nope, sorry, what we assumed was completely incorrect. Turns out binary systems are kinda common, not rare... Also, the universe is way older than we thought... Found a hot galaxy way way older than it should be." My favorite recent thing is that Sol is a VERY strange star lol. Turns out, Sol is why a lot of early stellar assumptions were wrong. Our baseline was an oddball XD
I'm curious if there could be two (or more) objects somehow merging their signals (or eating them) to generate the appearance of a slow signal. I mean... we're talking objects that can bend light already, why not radio? Either way, I'm betting the real explanation is awesome.
I'm curious if there could be two (or more) objects somehow merging their signals (or eating them) to generate the appearance of a slow signal. I mean... we're talking objects that can bend light already, why not radio? Either way, I'm betting the real explanation is awesome.
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Albino_Boo
Ars Praefectus
It's a lazy pulsar. Under my benevolent rule I will pass legislation ensuring pulsars work properly and tougher sentences for geography teachers. Sensible policies for happier universe.
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1) Any possibility that the object has a weird wobble?
2) Any possibility that this object is circle a very large and unique and new type of black hole that blocks radio transmissions and even sucks them back into it even when the object is in every position except for when the object is directly in line between the black hole and earth?
3) Wake up Nikola Tesla and ask him.
2) Any possibility that this object is circle a very large and unique and new type of black hole that blocks radio transmissions and even sucks them back into it even when the object is in every position except for when the object is directly in line between the black hole and earth?
3) Wake up Nikola Tesla and ask him.
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There's a whole lot of other stuff that happens if the pulsar was oribiting a black hole (or any other object). Things like delays in pulses depending on whether it's the side of it's orbit closest to earth or on the opposite side to earth. Redshift effects due the the motion towards or away from us in the orbit, redshifts due to how close the signal propagates to the black hole. Gravtional wave loses will also slowly change the orbital period, but they may not have observed it long enough to detect that, yet.
I would expect (but not sure) that a black hole lensing the pulses would give you a signal that looks alot like a gravtional microlensing event. Which has a very particular signal of getting brighter then fainter. Which I don't think they see.
Not that it can't have a black hole in the system (or that it's not a binary system of some kind). But there is more to think about than just whether a black hole is lensing the signal.
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Came to the comments to see the alien guy picture
- left disappointed
It's like how people just "xkcd #731" now instead of linking it.
(I just picked that one at random. But the free speech = showing people the door xkcd? Don't need to actually link that one, you can just say "free speech xkcd.jpg" and people know what you're talking about.
The aliens are inferred, at this point in time.)
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This is a pretty big tangent, but the name "ASKAPJ193505.1+214841.0" made me think that this is a good time to explain why astronomical objects can have such weird names.
Any astronomical name that appears to be a collection of seemingly random letters and numbers is that object's identifier in some sort of catalog of objects. The most famous catalog in astronomy was compiled by Charles Messier in the 1770s and 80s. He was a comet hunter and he realized that there were fuzzy blobs in the sky that kind of looked liked comets through a smallish telescope with 18th century optics, but weren't comets. To keep from getting confused, he made a list of them. M1 was simply the first object he added to his "not a comet" list, M2 was the second, etc. Amateur astronomers love the Messier catalog because it is 110 of the most beautiful star clusters, nebulae and galaxies that are visible through smallish telescopes.
Other catalogs use a more sophisticated naming convention than just the order when they were added to the list. Let's break down "ASKAPJ193505.1+214841.0" in detail.
"ASKAP" stands for "Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder". It is simply the name of the catalog. I am not sure what the "J" stands for. I couldn't in a cursory search, and I've been away from astronomical research too long to remember. I can think of several possibilities, but my best guess is that it is a code that tells you what type of object is in the ASKAP catalog. The "193505.1+214841.0" tells you where to point your telescope to find it, and deserves a more detailed breakdown.
It terms of pointing your telescope, it is best to think of the sky as being a giant sphere surrounding the Earth. Astronomers project coordinates onto that sphere that are analogous to to longitude and latitude. The "+214841.0" is the object's declination, which is exactly equivalent to latitude. This particular object is 21o 48' 41.0" north of where the Earth's equator projects on the celestial sphere. The "193505.1" is the equivalent of longitude, called right ascension, but it has some quirks, because we're astronomers and you just have to deal with it. The zero point in right ascension is the the vernal equinox, the spot where the sun crosses the celestial equator in March. Rather than measure the right ascension in degrees from the vernal equinox, it is measured in time it takes for the earth to rotate to that point. "193505.1" means that this object crosses the meridian (the line in the sky that runs directly overhead from the northern horizon to the southern horizon) 19 hours, 25 minutes and 5.1 seconds after the vernal equinox crosses the meridian.
Edit: numerous typos and small errors fixed.
Any astronomical name that appears to be a collection of seemingly random letters and numbers is that object's identifier in some sort of catalog of objects. The most famous catalog in astronomy was compiled by Charles Messier in the 1770s and 80s. He was a comet hunter and he realized that there were fuzzy blobs in the sky that kind of looked liked comets through a smallish telescope with 18th century optics, but weren't comets. To keep from getting confused, he made a list of them. M1 was simply the first object he added to his "not a comet" list, M2 was the second, etc. Amateur astronomers love the Messier catalog because it is 110 of the most beautiful star clusters, nebulae and galaxies that are visible through smallish telescopes.
Other catalogs use a more sophisticated naming convention than just the order when they were added to the list. Let's break down "ASKAPJ193505.1+214841.0" in detail.
"ASKAP" stands for "Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder". It is simply the name of the catalog. I am not sure what the "J" stands for. I couldn't in a cursory search, and I've been away from astronomical research too long to remember. I can think of several possibilities, but my best guess is that it is a code that tells you what type of object is in the ASKAP catalog. The "193505.1+214841.0" tells you where to point your telescope to find it, and deserves a more detailed breakdown.
It terms of pointing your telescope, it is best to think of the sky as being a giant sphere surrounding the Earth. Astronomers project coordinates onto that sphere that are analogous to to longitude and latitude. The "+214841.0" is the object's declination, which is exactly equivalent to latitude. This particular object is 21o 48' 41.0" north of where the Earth's equator projects on the celestial sphere. The "193505.1" is the equivalent of longitude, called right ascension, but it has some quirks, because we're astronomers and you just have to deal with it. The zero point in right ascension is the the vernal equinox, the spot where the sun crosses the celestial equator in March. Rather than measure the right ascension in degrees from the vernal equinox, it is measured in time it takes for the earth to rotate to that point. "193505.1" means that this object crosses the meridian (the line in the sky that runs directly overhead from the northern horizon to the southern horizon) 19 hours, 25 minutes and 5.1 seconds after the vernal equinox crosses the meridian.
Edit: numerous typos and small errors fixed.
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Simple type of explanation: It's a gravitionally locked system, where gravitation is strong enough to influence the other parameters, like magnetism through hydrodynamics. I may totally be raving, though.
Assuming there are transitional phenomena because this doesn't appear to have played since eternity should give plenty of freedom to explain that sometimes, the more frequent radio burst are suppressed.
I'll show myself out...
Assuming there are transitional phenomena because this doesn't appear to have played since eternity should give plenty of freedom to explain that sometimes, the more frequent radio burst are suppressed.
I'll show myself out...
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Pretty obvious to me that it was a joke. It's the kind of offhand comment someone might say amongst friends.
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Maybe its layered, with its inner core spinning at a different rate than the surface.
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If I were in the ISS, I would do that all day.
“Where’s Chuck?”
“He’s spinning the T-handle… again.
”“Is that code for something?”
“Nope, he’s just over there watching that T-handle spin back and forth.”
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Today I found a context article by Michelle Starr, excellent as always:
https://www.sciencealert.com/strange-radio-signal-from-deep-space-baffles-scientists
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