* Astronomy

Blobrana · L

PSR J2007+2722

Blobrana · L

By putting their home computers to work when they would otherwise be idle, three people on two continents have discovered a lone pulsar approximately 17,000 light years away in the constellation Vulpecula.
The finding, from data collected by the Cornell-managed Arecibo Observatory's ongoing Pulsar ALFA (PALFA) survey and archived and processed by the Cornell Centre for Advanced Computing, is the first deep-space discovery by Einstein@Home, which uses donated time from the home and office computers of 250,000 volunteers from 192 countries.
Credited with the discovery are Chris and Helen Colvin, both information technology professionals of Ames, Iowa, and systems analyst Daniel Gebhardt of Universität Mainz, Musikinformatik, Germany.
The newly discovered pulsar, PSR J2007+2722, is an isolated neutron star that rotates 41 times per second and has an unusually low magnetic field.
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Blobrana · L

By putting their home computers to work when they would otherwise be idle, three "citizen scientists" have discovered a rare astronomical object.
The unusual find is called a "disrupted binary pulsar"; these pulsars can be created when a massive star collapses.
The discoverers, from the US and Germany found the object with the help of the Einstein@Home project.
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