Newswise — Almost Heaven, Albert Einstein?
Relatively speaking, that's a big "yes" from Dr. Duncan Lorimer and Dr. Maura McLaughlin of West Virginia University.
Three years ago the radio astronomer duo was part of an international team in England that discovered a unique double pulsar some 2,000 light-years away from Earth. They've been tracking it ever since, and their first research findings are being published online today (Thursday, Sept. 14) in the prestigious journal, Science.
"Tests of General Relativity from Timing the Double Pulsar" is the name of the pair's research. It's being published today in Science Express, an online component of the journal.
That same paper is scheduled to appear in the Oct. 6 hard-copy edition of the journal.
For the complete study, and other details on the team, visit http://www.sciencemag.org/sciencexpress/recent.dtl.
A pulsar is a neutron star, which is the collapsed core of a massive star that has ended its interstellar life in a supernova explosion.
This particular double pulsar system, known officially as "PSR J07373039 A and B," is made up of two neutron stars a little more than 12 miles across " but each weighing more than our own Sun.
The pulsars orbit each other every two hours at speeds of a million kilometers an hour, emitting lighthouse-like beams of radio waves seen as "pulses" each time the beam sweeps past the Earth.
It's also the only known system of two detectable radio pulsars orbiting each other.And each orbital pass, McLaughlin said, gives an "A" to Einstein for theories on gravity and relativity the renowned German scientist launched a 100 years ago. "Albert Einstein would be absolutely thrilled," said McLaughlin, who, with her husband, Lorimer, joined WVU last May from Manchester University's Jodrell Bank Observatory in the United Kingdom.
"So far it's (the double pulsar) behaving exactly like Einstein said these things are supposed to behave," McLaughlin said.
With their colleagues in the U.K., Lorimer and McLaughlin have been able to precisely track the pulsar using three of the world's largest radio telescopes: the Lovell Telescope at Jodrell, the Parkes in Australia and the Robert C. Byrd Green Bank in Pocahontas County, West Virginia.
The sheer mass of the double pulsar is causing a "curve" in the fabric of space-time, the pair said, just as Einstein predicted. And interstellar "waves" of gravity " ripples in the space-time fabric " are also being generated at the speed of light as the pulsars orbit one another, Lorimer said.
Its very existence makes for a deep space laboratory to test relativity, Lorimer said. It also puts WVU heavenward for more space-research to come.
"We have only just begun to exploit its potential," he said.
WVU has great potential in radio astronomy, Lorimer said.
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