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A pulsar that doesn’t slow down fast enough

MAR 01, 1975
Marian S. Rothenberg

A pulsar that is slowing down much less rapidly than any other known pulsar may have some interesting implications for current theories of pulsar formation and perhaps even for theories of expansion of the universe. David Richards, John Rankin and Gustave Zeissig studied the pulsar, JP 1953, as one of 13 in a continuing program of precise pulse timing at the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico. A surprising result of the study, they comment in Nature is that for JP 1953, dP/dt, the change in its 0.4 sec period with time, is only about 0.003±0.007×10−15 seconds per second. The previously known smallest value for any pulsar had been 0.15×10−15, and a typical value exceeds 10−15.

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This Content Appeared In
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Volume 28, Number 3

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