Pulsar showing magnetic field lines and radio beam. Parkes
telescope finds new kind of star An international team of
astronomers using CSIRO’s Parkes radio telescope in eastern
Australia has found a new kind of cosmic object. An
international team of astronomers using CSIRO’s Parkes radio
telescope in eastern Australia has found a new kind of cosmic
object — small, compressed ‘neutron stars’ that show no activity
most of the time but once in a while spit out a single burst of
radio waves. The discovery will be published in this week’s
issue of the journal Nature. The new objects — dubbed Rotating
Radio Transients or RRATs — are likely to be related to
conventional radio pulsars (small stars that emit regular pulses
of radio waves, up to hundreds of times a second). But the new
objects probably far outnumber their old cousins, the scientists
say. Eleven RRATs have been found, first detected by the Parkes
Multibeam Pulsar Survey and then observed again several times.
Their isolated bursts last for between two a