Journalism of Courage
A team of Indian astronomers have reportedly observed a stream of out-of-sync signals emerging from a millisecond pulsar, indicating some larger undetected event which could have unfolded in the Universe.
With the help of the upgraded Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (uGMRT), 40 astronomers attached to the Indian Pulsar Timing Array (InPTA) observed these striking observations, which concluded that the rhythm of the signals and the clock behaviour were both abnormal.
Pulsars are dead and dense star matter, which, during their super-fast rotations, flash radio signals in the form of flash lights at fixed timed intervals. This periodicity makes pulsars as good as cosmic clocks of the Universe.
The InPTA astronomers, including senior scientists from TIFR – National Centre for Radio Astrophysics (NCRA) — noticed this aberration in the radio flashes coming from PSR J1 713+0747 during their observations in April and May this year.
“The change in this event was much larger than ever observed before in any other pulsar clock,” the scientists said.
Known for their stable behaviour, millisecond pulsars are used to detect ultra-low frequency nanohertz gravitational (nHz) waves.
InPTA is involved in carrying out observations to detect these elusive gravitational waves.
The team continues to track this object and said that more observations using uGMRT will be needed to further the understanding of the unexpected event.
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