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News Center

Welcome to the News Center. Here you will find NRAO press releases, images, video and audio content, news articles, and other related media.

Comparing orbits of pulsar and its companion to our solar system (Credit: Bill Saxton, NRAO/AUI/NSF).

Weird Stellar Pair Puzzles Scientists

Astronomers have discovered a speedy spinning pulsar in an elongated orbit around an apparent Sun-like star, a combination never seen before, and one that has them puzzled about how the strange system developed.

"Our ideas about how the fastest-spinning pulsars are produced do not predict either the kind of orbit or the type of companion star this one has," said David Champion of the Australia Telescope National Facility. "We have to come up with some new scenarios to explain this weird pair," he added...
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The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.