There is a mysterious entity circling around a pulsar in our galaxy, and scientists are unsure if it is a very heavy neutron star, one of the lightest black holes ever discovered, or an exotic and never-before-seen quasi-stellar object. By analyzing the beams’ arrival on Earth, researchers can deduce the existence of anything perturbing the pulsar’s motion. The ticks of a particular pulsar, known as PSR J0514−4002E, revealed that it has an invisible companion weighing between about 2.1 and 2.7 times the mass of the sun, potentially making it too heavy to be a neutron star. However, the exact nature of this object remains unknown. Researchers hope to determine its true nature and use it to probe matter in similarly extreme objects.
2024-01-18 14:00:00
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