Tiny spinning star slammed by billion-ton space rock, say astronomers
When you throw a bunch of rock and debris at a rapidly spinning star, what happens? A new study suggests that so-called聽聽change their dizzying spin rate as asteroids fall into the gaseous mass. This conclusion comes from observations of one pulsar (PSR J0738-4042) that is being 鈥減ounded鈥� with debris from rocks, researchers said.
Lying 37,000 light-years from our planet in the southern constellation Puppis, this supernova remnant鈥檚 environment is swarming with rocks, radiation and 鈥渨inds of particles鈥�. One of those rocks likely was more than a billion metric tonnes in mass, which is nowhere near the mass of Earth (), but is still substantial.
鈥淚f a large rocky object can form here, planets could form around any star. That鈥檚 exciting,鈥� stated聽Ryan Shannon, a researcher with the聽Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation who participated in the study.
Pulsars are sometimes called the clocks of the universe because their spins, fast as they are, precisely emit radio beams with each revolution 鈥� a beam that can be seen from Earth if our planet and the star are aligned in the right way. A 2008 study by Shannon and others predicted the spin could be altered by debris falling into the pulsar, which this new research appears to confirm.
鈥淲e think the pulsar鈥檚 radio beam zaps the asteroid, vaporizing it. But the vaporized particles are electrically charged and they slightly alter the process that creates the pulsar鈥檚 beam,鈥� Shannon said.
As stars explode, the researchers further suggest that not only do they leave behind a pulsar star remnant, but they also throw out debris that could then fall back towards the pulsar and create a debris disc. Another pulsar,聽J0146+61, appears to display this kind of disc. As with other protoplanetary systems, it鈥檚 possible the small bits of matter could gradually clump together to form bigger rocks.
You can read the study in聽聽or in聽. The study was led by聽Paul Brook, a Ph.D. student co-supervised by聽the University of Oxford and CSIRO. Observations were performed with the聽Hartebeesthoek Radio聽Astronomy Observatory in South Africa, and CSIRO鈥檚聽Parkes radio telescope.
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Elizabeth Howell is the senior writer at Universe Today. She also works for SPACE.com, Astronomers Without Borders, Space Exploration Network, the NASA Lunar Science Institute, NASA Astrobiology Magazine and LiveScience, among others. Career highlights include watching three shuttle launches, and going on a two-week simulated Mars expedition in rural Utah. You can follow her on Twitter聽@howellspace聽or contact her at聽.
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