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Is it possible that we are overlooking extraterrestrial signals in our search of the skies for intelligent alien life? If alien life does exist in our galaxy and beyond, is it possible that its signals could be similar to what we detect and label as pulsars? We see pulsars as a natural phenomenon, but what if that’s not the case?
Pulsars are very dense neutron stars that are the size of a city (their radius approaches ten kilometres), which, like lighthouses for the universe, emit gamma radiation beams or X-rays when they rotate up to hundreds of times per second. These characteristics make them ideal for testing the validity of the theory of general relativity, published by Einstein between 1915 and 1916.
An object scientists thought was a black hole is actually the brightest and weirdest pulsar ever detected.
The brightest pulsar ever recorded has been discovered by astronomers using NASA’s Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array, or NuSTAR. Pulsars are also called dead stars because they are what’s left after a supernova explosion, and belong to a class called neutron stars.
Astronomers are using pulsars to test Einstein’s theory of relativity.
