Word: neutron
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...Arizona astronomers had three good reasons for picking their target: 1) most scientists now believe that pulsars are neutron stars, small and incredibly dense spheres that are residues of exploded stars like the one that formed the Crab nebula; 2) a pulsar had recently been detected in the Crab by radio telescopes and 3) the Crab pulsar, or neutron star, beeps faster than any discovered to date. Thus it is presumably younger, hotter and brighter, and could be seen more easily than any other...
...investigating a new report by astronomers at an observatory on Malta, who saw strange "ghost" flashes about 3° to either side of both the Crab pulsar and another nearby pulsar. With these new clues, scientists hope to be able to learn more about the physical characteristics of the neutron star and move closer to a complete solution of the great pulsar mystery...
...discoveries made a prophet in his own time of Cornell Astrophysicist Thomas Gold, who last spring predicted that pulsars with faster rates would soon be discovered and that some might well be detected in the process of slowing down. The findings also supported the contention that pulsars are actually neutron stars, strange celestial bodies that were mathematically postulated by scientists in the 1930s but have not yet been proved to exist...
According to theory, neutron stars are formed during the cataclysmic processes that occur in a supernova. They consist entirely of neutrons densely packed into dim spheres that are about ten miles in diameter and weigh more than 10 billion lbs. per cubic inch. Astrophysicist Gold believes that a neutron star has an in credibly intense magnetic field that traps ionized gases expelled from the supernova. As the star and its magnetic field spin, the outmost of the trapped gases are whirled at almost the speed of light until they break away, producing an intense beam of radio waves-the regularly...
...there was Louis Slotin, a morose Canadian with an apparent death wish, who conducted tests of critical assemblies by poking curved segments of uranium or plutonium together with a screwdriver while eying his Geiger counter and neutron monitor. One day in 1946, nudging segments of a Bikini test bomb a little too close, he suddenly saw a blue ionization glow in the room-the sign of a dangerously radioactive reaction. He threw his body over the segments until everyone else in the room could hurry out. Although the others lived, Slotin achieved his death wish. He died in agony nine...