Word: pulsare
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...that PSR 2224+65 is in any sense an ordinary star. It is a pulsar, the superdense ash left behind when a star exploded -- about a million years ago -- in the phenomenon known as a supernova. The blast blew off the star's outer layers and flung the 3,000 trillion trillion ton, Manhattan-size pulsar through space. The dead star generates an enormous magnetic field, which in turn sends out powerful radio pulses (hence the name pulsar...
...minute 12-second postmodern song cycle you could dance or dream to. That's the symphonic rock album Moodfood, by the British duo MOODSWINGS (percussionist J.F.T. Hood and producer Grant Showbiz). The set punctuates its disco-liturgical luxuriance with ethereal vocals by Chrissie Hynde and a pulsar guitar solo by Jeff Beck. Mixing rap and classical and everything in between -- and then remixing it to suggest a Top 40 radio show beamed from Mars -- Moodfood is a haunting and hummable blast. It's like the sound track for some visionary movie no one has yet dared to make...
...Pulsars are fast-spinning, ultra-dense clumps of neutrons -- generally the husks of stars that have exploded. They get their name from the powerful radio pulses that they emit at precisely regular intervals. It was an anomaly in these pulses that led the Manchester astronomers to focus on one particular pulsar -- and convinced them that a planet whirled around it. The pulsar spins on its axis three times a second, raking the earth with a beam of radio waves each time. But, says Lyne, periodically "the pulses would arrive about one- hundredth of a second earlier than they should...
Their conclusion: the pulsar is wobbling, pulled by the gravitational field of a planet that orbits the star once every six months. When the planet is nearest earth, it tugs the pulsar in our direction, and the distance that the radio pulse travels to reach us starts to get shorter. Three months later, the planet pulls the pulsar the other way, and the distance the pulse must travel begins to lengthen...
Lyne's work provides no answer to the most tantalizing question in astronomy: Is there life on other planets? In this case, life would be difficult on a planet whose sun is a relatively tiny, dim pulsar. Astronomer Black figures that in about 10 years, telescopic instruments may be sophisticated enough to focus on the planet itself, rather than just the pulsar. Even if no Klingons are immediately found, the knowledge gained from examining the distant planet will make it easier to explore the countless other worlds waiting to be discovered...