Pulsar takes tests of General Relativity into new territory
Astronomers using ESO’s Very Large Telescope, along with radio telescopes around the world, they find and study a bizarre stellar pair consisting of the most massive neutron star, orbited by a white dwarf star. This strange new binary allows tests of Einstein’s theory of gravity — general relativity — in ways that were not possible up to now.
The Black Widow Pulsar
The “Black Widow” pulsar is moving through the galaxy at a speed of almost a million kilometers per hour. A bow shock wave due to this motion is visible to optical telescopes, shown in this image as the greenish crescent shape. The pressure behind the bow shock creates a second shock wave that sweeps the cloud of high-energy particles back from the pulsar to form the cocoon.
A Planet made of Diamonds (video)
Astronomers believe they have found an entire planet made of diamonds. Scientists at the University of Manchester think they have unearthed a once-massive star in the Milky Way that has been transformed into a small planet made of the precious rock.
