CANADA: Exciting news for space lovers and exploration seekers: researchers have discovered the first gamma-ray pulsar outside the Milky Way – and it sets the record of being the most luminous known gamma-ray pulsar to date.
Imaged by NASA’s Fermi gamma-ray Space Telescope, the pulsar lies in the Tarantula Nebula’s outskirts in the Large Magellanic Cloud, a small satellite galaxy of the Milky Way found 163,000 light years away. The Tarantula Nebula is the biggest, most active, and most intricate star-formation area in the galactic community, identified as a bright gamma-ray source.
Lead scientist and astrophysicist Pierrick Martin said PSR J0540-6919 is responsible for about half of the gamma-ray brightness originally believed to hail from the nebula.
“That is a genuine surprise,” he said.
The new findings were announced Nov. 13 in the journal Science.
The highest-energy light form, gamma-rays are deemed borne out of subatomic particles that collided in the wake of supernova explosions. Extremely condensed having collapsed in on itself, a supernova rotates quickly; during spinning, electromagnetic field shoots out energy pulses in the form of gamma rays, X-rays, radio waves, and visible light.
The Tarantula Nebula is known for another pulsar, PSR J0537−6910 (J0537), discovered with the help of the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE) satellite and spins at nearly 62 times a second, the fastest-known rotation time for a young pulsar. J0540, on the other hand, whirls at just under 20 times per second.
Co-author Lucas Guillemot said J0540’s gamma-ray pulses have 20 times the intensity of the pulsar in the Crab Nebula, the previous record-holder. “[Y]et they have roughly similar levels of radio, optical and X-ray emission,” he explained.
