Archive for pulsar

It’s not a planet. It’s a white dwarf. (via Matt Burleigh’s Blog)

Posted in Astrohype, The Universe and Stuff with tags , , , , on August 27, 2011 by telescoper

When is a planet made of diamond not a planet made of diamond?

Perhaps when it’s a White Dwarf?

Perhaps when there’s not a shred of evidence that it’s actually made of diamond?

Yesterday Science announced the amazing discovery of an incredibly dense object that appears to be made of a crystalline form of carbon: possibly, ultra-dense diamond (Bailes et al. 2011, Science, DOI: 10.1126/science.1208890). The object orbits a recently-discovered pulsar, PSR J1719-1438, every two hours and ten minutes. It has a slightly higher mass than Jupiter (technically, its minimum mass), but the lack of evidence for direct interaction w … Read More

via Matt Burleigh’s Blog

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