Re: Parkes telescope finds new kind of cosmic object

Wasn't it Jason H. who wrote:
Mike Williams wrote:
...snip...

Perhaps they've already eaten most of the material in their immediate
environment, so they're not being fed continuously by an accretion disk.
There's only a few small objects left in their system. When each object
falls in, there's a single burst of energy.

--
Mike Williams
Gentleman of Leisure

Hi Mike (and Anthony),

According to their release

http://www.atnf.csiro.au/news/press/rrats.html

"...Their isolated bursts last for between two and 30 milliseconds. In
between, for times ranging from four minutes to three hours, they are
silent."

I wonder how much mass those bursts are equivalent to. Because the
bursts are eventually repeating at intervals of <3 hours, it implies a
semi-regular periodic influx of material. I imagine that planetary
mass objects would be exhausted fairly quickly. Perhaps it's a warped
accretion disk with a wobble caused by an massive interloper object
that has affected the system, was either ejected from the system or is
currently below the detection threshold? Perhaps its a high-period
giant planet that shepherds debris from a disk into the neutron star.
Perhaps E.T. is using a mass-driver to pulse the neutron star in
periods that could only be interpreted as artificial? :^)

I guess it all comes down to watching the burst intervals and energies.
Does anyone here subscribe to Nature? Is there any room for an
A-natural explanation?

Wouldn't a warped accretion disk or a high period planet tend to cause
*regular* bursts, rather than the irregular bursts that are reported?

Normal pulsars are able to pulse continuously for millennia. E.g. the
pulsar at the heart of the Crab Nebula was created by a supernova in
1054, and is still extremely lively. If (and that's a big "if", nobody
seems to really know) pulsars are fuelled by an infalling accretion
disk, then the Crab Pulsar's disk has already provided fuel for
something like 9*10^11 pulses. At that rate, a single pulse would
correspond to quite a small infalling object.

--
Mike Williams
Gentleman of Leisure
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Parkes telescope finds new kind of cosmic object
    ... accretion disk as it does for x-ray pulsars. ... The radio emission comes ... so they're not being fed continuously by an accretion disk. ... "...Their isolated bursts last for between two and 30 milliseconds. ...
    (sci.astro.seti)
  • Re: Parkes telescope finds new kind of cosmic object
    ... Mike Williams wrote: ... so they're not being fed continuously by an accretion disk. ... "...Their isolated bursts last for between two and 30 milliseconds. ... giant planet that shepherds debris from a disk into the neutron star. ...
    (sci.astro.seti)
  • Re: Frequency signal multiplier - repost.
    ... Does the pulse rate have to be uniform or will the system work with (for ... for every 2nd input can be an all digital circuit if you prefer that. ... This would be a little more even than bursts of 3. ...
    (sci.electronics.design)
  • Re: Frequency signal multiplier - repost.
    ... > Does the pulse rate have to be uniform or will the system work with (for ... This would be a little more even than bursts of 3. ... Are you saying in your last paragraph that on a digital circuit for every 2 ...
    (sci.electronics.design)
Loading