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pulsar

 
Dictionary: pul·sar   (pŭl'sär') pronunciation
n.
Any of several celestial radio sources emitting short intense bursts of radio waves, x-rays, or visible electromagnetic radiation at regular intervals, generally believed to be rotating neutron stars.

[From PULSE1, by analogy with QUASAR.]


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A celestial radio source producing intense short bursts of radio emission. Since the discovery of pulsars in 1968, about 1300 pulsars have been found (as of May 2001), and it has become clear that 100,000 pulsars must exist in the Milky Way Galaxy—most of them too distant to be detected with existing radio telescopes. See also Radio astronomy.

Pulsars are distinguished from most other types of celestial radio sources in that their emission, instead of being constant over time scales of years or longer, consists of periodic sequences of brief pulses. The interval between pulses, or pulse period, is nearly constant for a given pulsar, but for different sources ranges from 0.0016 to 8.5 s. The bursts of emission are generally confined to a window whose width is a few percent of the interpulse period. Individual pulses can vary widely in intensity.

The association of pulsars with neutron stars, the collapsed cores left behind when moderate- to high-mass stars become unstable and collapse, is supported by many arguments. The standard model for pulsars is a spinning neutron star with an intense dipole magnetic field (surface field of 1012 gauss or 108 teslas) misaligned with the rotation axis. The off-axis rotating dipole field develops a huge voltage difference between the neutron star surface and the surrounding matter. Charges accelerate in this voltage and generate an avalanche of electrons and positrons, a relativistic current leaving the polar zones of the star. Highly directive radio emission is formed in this current, which is observed as pulses, one per rotation, just like a rotating searchlight. See also Electron; Positron.

A fundamental observation that supports the rotating neutron star model is the remarkable stability of the basic pulsation periods, which typically remain constant to a few tens of nanoseconds over a year. This stability is natural to the free rotation of a compact, rigid object like a neutron star, but is extremely difficult to produce by any other known physical process.

Pulsars have provided a unique set of probes for the investigation of the diffuse gas and magnetic fields in interstellar space. Measurement of absorption at 1420 MHz, the frequency of the hyperfine transition in ground-state neutral hydrogen atoms, gives information on the structure of gas clouds, and in many cases provides an estimate of the pulsar distance. The index of refraction for radio waves in the ionized interstellar gas is strongly frequency-dependent, and low-frequency signals propagate more slowly than those at high frequencies. The broadband, pulsed nature of pulsar signals makes them ideal for measurements of this dispersion.

The first pulsar in a binary, PSR B1913+167, was found in 1975. About 50 binary pulsars are now known. The binary pulsar PSR B1913+167 has an orbital speed near one-thousandth the speed of light. This large speed and the intense gravitational field of the nearby companion neutron star, when combined with the accurate clock mechanism provided by the pulsations, make this system an ideal testing ground for relativistic gravitation theories. One especially important prediction of the general theory of relativity is that a close binary star system should gradually lose energy by the radiation of gravitational waves, and consequently the two stars should slowly spiral closer together. Observations of Doppler shifts of the pulsar signals have established that the two masses in the PSR B1913+167 system are each approximately 1.4 times the mass of the Sun. The quantitative prediction of general relativity is, then, that the orbital period should diminish by about 10−7 s per orbit, amounting to a cumulative orbital phase shift of 8 s after 14 years. Just such an effect has been found, and the observations provide the first (and only) experimental evidence in support of the existence of gravitational waves. See also Gravitation; Gravitational radiation; Relativity.



A pulsar emits two beams of electromagnetic radiation along its magnetic axis. If the magnetic axis …
(click to enlarge)
A pulsar emits two beams of electromagnetic radiation along its magnetic axis. If the magnetic axis … (credit: © Merriam-Webster Inc.)
Any of a class of cosmic objects that appear to emit extremely regular pulses of radio waves. A few give off short rhythmic bursts of visible light, X rays, and gamma radiation as well. Thought to be rapidly spinning neutron stars, they were discovered by Antony Hewish and Jocelyn Bell Burnell in 1967 with a specially designed radio telescope. More than 550 have been detected since. All behave similarly, but the intervals between pulses (and thus their rotation periods) range from one-thousandth of a second to four seconds. Charged particles from the surface enter the star's magnetic field, which accelerates them so that they give off radiation, released as intense beams from the magnetic poles. These do not coincide with the pulsar's own axis of rotation, so as the star spins, the radiation beams swing around like lighthouse beams and are seen as pulses. Pulsars have been shown to be slowing down, typically by a millionth of a second per year. It has been calculated that pulsars "switch off" after about 10 million years, when their magnetic fields weaken enough.

For more information on pulsar, visit Britannica.com.

 
pulsar, in astronomy, a neutron star that emits brief, sharp pulses of energy instead of the steady radiation associated with other natural sources. The study of pulsars began when Antony Hewish and his students at Cambridge built a primitive radio telescope to study a scintillation effect on radio sources caused by clouds of electrons in the solar wind. Because this telescope was specially designed to record rapid variations in signals, in 1967 it readily recorded a signal from a totally unexpected source. Jocelyn Bell Burnell noticed a strong scintillation effect opposite the sun, where the effect should have been weak. After an improved recorder was installed, the signals were received again as a series of sharp pulses with intervals of about a second. By the end of 1968 it was clear that the team had discovered a rapidly spinning neutron star, a remnant of a supernova.

In 1974 the first binary pulsar-two stars, at least one of which is a neutron star, that orbit each other-was discovered by Russell A. Hulse and Joseph H. Taylor, for which they shared the 1993 Nobel Prize in Physics. Using this binary system, they observed indirect evidence of gravitational waves and also tested the general theory of relativity. Several dozen binary pulsars are now known. In 1995 the orbiting Compton Gamma Ray Observatory detected the first object that bursts and pulses at the same time. This bursting pulsar, another class of pulsars, is currently the strongest source of X rays and gamma rays in the sky. Fewer than a dozen bursting pulsars are known to exist.

The intense magnetic field and plasma that are believed to surround a neutron star provide an effective source of radio waves. The high-energy electrons of the plasma spiral around the magnetic field and emit radio waves and other forms of electromagnetic radiation. This synchrotron radiation is highly directional, like a flashlight beam. If the neutron star is rotating, it will act like a revolving beacon and produce the observed pulses. The pulses recur at precise intervals, but successive pulses differ considerably in strength. Since 1968 more than 700 pulsars have been observed, with pulse rates from 4 seconds to 1.5 milliseconds; the very rapid ones are called millisecond pulsars. The interval between pulses decreases ever so slightly with the passage of time, and it is believed that the slower pulsers are the older stars while the rapid pulsers are the younger. Pulsars in the Crab Nebula and at the site of the Vela supernova can be detected optically as well as at X-ray and gamma-ray frequencies.


Science Q&A: What is a pulsar?
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A pulsar is a rotating neutron star that gives off sharp regular pulses of radio waves at rates ranging from 0.001 to four seconds. Stars burn by fusing hydrogen into helium. When they use up their hydrogen, their interiors begin to contract. During this contraction, energy is released and the outer layers of the star are pushed out. These layers are large and cool; the star is now a red giant. A star with more than twice the mass of the sun will continue to expand, becoming a supergiant. At that point, it may blow up in an explosion called a supernova. After a supernova, the remaining material of the star's core may be so compressed that the electrons and protons become neutrons. A star 1.4 to four times the mass of the sun can be compressed into a neutron star only about 12 miles (20 kilometers) across. Neutron stars rotate very fast. The neutron star at the center of the Crab Nebula spins 30 times per second.

A pulsar is formed by the collapse of a star with 1.4 to four times the mass of the sun. Some of these neutron stars emit radio signals from their magnetic poles in a direction that reaches Earth. These signals were first detected by Jocelyn Bell (b. 1943) of Cambridge University in 1967. Because of their regularity some people speculated that they were extraterrestrial beacons constructed by alien civilizations. This theory was eventually ruled out and the rotating neutron star came to be accepted as the explanation for these pulsating radio sources, or pulsars.

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Science Dictionary: pulsar
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(pul-sahr)

A rapidly rotating neutron star. The radiation from such a star appears to come in a series of regular pulses (one per revolution), which explains the name.

Cosmic Lexicon: Pulsar
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Variable radio star having stable, very short (around one second) periods of pulsations. Electrons moving rapidly in a pulsar's magnetic field produce narrow beams of radiation which sweep around as the pulsar spins (analogous to sweeping search-light beams).


Wikipedia: Pulsar
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Schematic view of a pulsar. The sphere in the middle represents the neutron star, the curves indicate the magnetic field lines and the protruding cones represent the emission beams.
Cycle of pulsed gamma rays from the Vela pulsar.

Pulsars are highly magnetized, rotating neutron stars that emit a beam of electromagnetic radiation. The observed periods of their pulses range from 1.4 milliseconds to 8.5 seconds.[1] The radiation can only be observed when the beam of emission is pointing towards the Earth. This is called the lighthouse effect and gives rise to the pulsed nature that gives pulsars their name. Because neutron stars are very dense objects, the rotation period and thus the interval between observed pulses is very regular. For some pulsars, the regularity of pulsation is as precise as an atomic clock.[2] A few pulsars are known to have planets orbiting them, as in the case of PSR B1257+12. Werner Becker of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics said in 2006, "The theory of how pulsars emit their radiation is still in its infancy, even after nearly forty years of work."[3]

Contents

Discovery

Composite Optical/X-ray image of the Crab Nebula, showing synchrotron emission in the surrounding pulsar wind nebula, powered by injection of magnetic fields and particles from the central pulsar.

The first pulsar was observed in July 1967 by Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Antony Hewish. Initially baffled as to the seemingly unnatural regularity of its emissions, they dubbed their discovery LGM-1, for "little green men" (a name for intelligent beings of extraterrestrial origin). The hypothesis that pulsars were beacons from extraterrestrial civilizations was never serious, but some discussed the far-reaching implications if it turned out to be true.[4] Their pulsar was later dubbed CP 1919, and is now known by a number of designators including PSR 1919+21, PSR B1919+21 and PSR J1921+2153.

Although CP 1919 emits in radio wavelengths, pulsars have, subsequently, been found to emit in visible light, X-ray, and/or gamma ray wavelengths.[5]

The word "pulsar" is a contraction of "pulsating star", and first appeared in print in 1968:

An entirely novel kind of star came to light on Aug. 6 last year and was referred to, by astronomers, as LGM (Little Green Men). Now it is thought to be a novel type between a white dwarf and a neutron [sic]. The name Pulsar is likely to be given to it. Dr. A. Hewish told me yesterday: "… I am sure that today every radio telescope is looking at the Pulsars."[6]

The suggestion that pulsars were rotating neutron stars was put forth independently by Thomas Gold and Franco Pacini in 1968, and was soon proven beyond reasonable doubt by the discovery of a pulsar with a very short (33-millisecond) pulse period in the Crab nebula.

In 1974, Antony Hewish became the first astronomer to be awarded the Nobel Prize in physics. Considerable controversy is associated with the fact that Professor Hewish was awarded the prize while Bell, who made the initial discovery while she was his Ph.D student, was not.

Subsequent history

The Vela Pulsar and its surrounding pulsar wind nebula.

In 1974, Joseph Hooton Taylor, Jr. and Russell Hulse discovered the first time pulsar in a binary system, PSR B1913+16. This pulsar orbits another neutron star with an orbital period of just eight hours. Einstein's theory of general relativity predicts that this system should emit strong gravitational radiation, causing the orbit to continually contract as it loses orbital energy. Observations of the pulsar soon confirmed this prediction, providing the first ever evidence of the existence of gravitational waves. As of 2004, observations of this pulsar continue to agree with general relativity. In 1993, the Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded to Taylor and Hulse for the discovery of this pulsar.

In 1982, Don Backer led a group which discovered PSR B1937+21, a pulsar with a rotation period of just 1.6 milliseconds. Observations soon revealed that its magnetic field was much weaker than ordinary pulsars, while further discoveries cemented the idea that a new class of object, the "millisecond pulsars" (MSPs) had been found. MSPs are believed to be the end product of X-ray binaries. Owing to their extraordinarily rapid and stable rotation, MSPs can be used by astronomers as clocks rivaling the stability of the best atomic clocks on Earth. Factors affecting the arrival time of pulses at the Earth by more than a few hundred nanoseconds can be easily detected and used to make precise measurements. Physical parameters accessible through pulsar timing include the 3D position of the pulsar, its proper motion, the electron content of the interstellar medium along the propagation path, the orbital parameters of any binary companion, the pulsar rotation period and its evolution with time. (These are computed from the raw timing data by Tempo, a computer program specialized for this task.) After these factors have been taken into account, deviations between the observed arrival times and predictions made using these parameters can be found and attributed to one of three possibilities: intrinsic variations in the spin period of the pulsar, errors in the realization of Terrestrial Time against which arrival times were measured, or the presence of background gravitational waves. Scientists are currently attempting to resolve these possibilities by comparing the deviations seen amongst several different pulsars, forming what is known as a Pulsar Timing Array. With luck, these efforts may lead to a time scale a factor of ten or better than currently available, and the first ever direct detection of gravitational waves.

In 1992, Aleksander Wolszczan discovered the first extrasolar planets around PSR B1257+12. This discovery presented important evidence concerning the widespread existence of planets outside the solar system, although it is very unlikely that any life form could survive in the environment of intense radiation near a pulsar.

Theory

There is general agreement that what we observe as a pulse is what happens when a beam of radiation points in our direction, once for every rotation of the neutron star. The origin of the beam is related to the misalignment of the rotation axis and the axis of the magnetic field of the star. The beam is emitted from the poles of the neutron star's magnetic field, which may be offset from the rotational poles by a wide angle. The source of the power of the beam is the rotational energy of the neutron star. This rotation slows down over time as electromagnetic power is emitted.

Millisecond pulsars are thought to have been spun up to high rotational speed by matter falling in that had been pulled off from a companion star.

Of interest to the study of the state of the matter in a neutron stars are the glitches observed in the rotation velocity of the neutron star. This velocity is decreasing slowly but steadily, except by sudden variations. One model put forward to explain these glitches is that they are the result of "starquakes" that adjust the crust of the neutron star. Models where the glitch is due to a decoupling of the possibly superconducting interior of the star have also been advanced. In both cases, the star's moment of inertia changes, but its angular momentum doesn't, resulting in a change in rotation rate.

In 2003, observations of the Crab nebula's pulsar electromagnetic signal revealed "sub-pulses" within the main signal with durations of only nanoseconds. It is thought that these nanosecond pulses are emitted by regions on the pulsar's surface 60 cm in diameter or smaller, making them the smallest structures outside the solar system to be measured.

Categories

Three distinct classes of pulsars are currently known to astronomers, according to the source of the power of the electromagnetic radiation:

The Fermi Space Telescope has uncovered a subclass of rotationally-powered pulsars that emit only gamma rays.[7] There have been only about twelve gamma-ray pulsars identified out of about 1800 known pulsars.[8][9]

Although all three classes of objects are neutron stars, their observable behavior and the underlying physics are quite different. There are, however, connections. For example, X-ray pulsars are probably old rotationally-powered pulsars that have already lost most of their power, and have only become visible again after their binary companions had expanded and began transferring matter on to the neutron star. The process of accretion can in turn transfer enough angular momentum to the neutron star to "recycle" it as a rotation-powered millisecond pulsar.

Naming

Initially pulsars were named with letters of the discovering observatory followed by their right ascension (e.g. CP 1919). As more pulsars were discovered, the letter code became unwieldy and so the convention was then superseded by the letters PSR (Pulsating Source of Radio) followed by the pulsar's right ascension and degrees of declination (e.g. PSR 0531+21) and sometimes declination to a tenth of a degree (e.g. PSR 1913+167). Pulsars that are very close together sometimes have letters appended (e.g. PSR 0021-72C and PSR 0021-72D).

The modern convention is to prefix the older numbers with a B (e.g. PSR B1919+21) with the B meaning the coordinates are for the 1950.0 epoch. All new pulsars have a J indicating 2000.0 coordinates and also have declination including minutes (e.g. PSR J1921+2153). Pulsars that were discovered before 1993 tend to retain their B names rather than use their J names (e.g. PSR J1921+2153 is more commonly known as PSR B1919+21). Recently discovered pulsars only have a J name (e.g. PSR J0437-4715). All pulsars have a J name that provides more precise coordinates of its location in the sky.[10]

Miscellaneous facts

  • The magnetic axis of pulsars determines the direction of its jets (the lighthouse spewing out the north and south poles of the magnetic axis of rotation), and their magnetic axis is not necessarily the same as their spin axis - just as Earth's magnetic north pole is not the same as its true (spin) north pole. That's why pulsars don't just "sit there" and beam at the same point in their own celestial sphere (if their outer spin axis coincided with their magnetic spin axis). If this happened, they would not pulse... there would just be detectable sources of radiation (when their jets pointed straight at us), or not, but no pulsing.
  • Although 8.5 seconds is the slowest observed pulsar period to date, note that as pulsars slow, their power output decreases. Conceivably there are much slower ones, below current levels of detection. On the other hand, the fastest that they can spin (e.g. 1.4 msec) seems to be dependent on the speed at which a pulsar can rotate without neutronium breaking up. In summary, young pulsars are fast and energetic; old ones are slow and weak, with the exception of millisecond pulsars, which are old but have been "recycled" to very short periods.
  • It is currently not known if original star mass (pre supernova) or current neutron star mass is related to pulse period.
  • In June 2006, the astronomer John Middleditch and his team at LANL announced the first prediction of pulsar glitches with observational data from the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer. They used observations of the pulsar PSR J0537-6910.

Applications

The study of pulsars has resulted in many applications in physics and astronomy. Striking examples include the confirmation of the existence of gravitational radiation as predicted by general relativity and the first detection of an extrasolar planetary system.

The discovery of pulsars allowed astronomers to study an object never observed before, the neutron star. This kind of object is the only place where the behavior of matter at nuclear density can be observed (though not directly). Also, millisecond pulsars have allowed a test of general relativity in conditions of an intense gravitational field.

As probes of the interstellar medium

The radiation from pulsars passes through the interstellar medium (ISM) before reaching Earth. Free electrons in the warm (8000 K), ionized component of the ISM and H II regions affect the radiation in two primary ways. The resulting changes to the pulsar's radiation provide an important probe of the ISM itself.[11]

Due to the dispersive nature of the interstellar plasma, lower-frequency radio waves travel through the medium slower than higher-frequency radio waves. The resulting delay in the arrival of pulses at a range of frequencies is directly measurable as the dispersion measure of the pulsar. The dispersion measure is the total column density of free electrons between the observer and the pulsar,

\mathrm{DM} = \int_0^D n_e(s) ds,

where D is the distance from the pulsar to the observer and ne is the electron density of the ISM. The dispersion measure is used to construct models of the free electron distribution in the Milky Way Galaxy.[12]

Additionally, turbulence in the interstellar gas causes density inhomogeneities in the ISM which cause scattering of the radio waves from the pulsar. The resulting scintillation of the radio waves—the same effect as the twinkling of a star in visible light due to density variations in the Earth's atmosphere—can be used to reconstruct information about the small scale variations in the ISM.[13] Due to the high velocity (up to several hundred km/s) of many pulsars, a single pulsar scans the ISM rapidly, which results in changing scintillation patterns over timescales of a few minutes.[14]

Significant pulsars

Gamma-ray pulsars detected by the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope.
  • PSR B1931+24 "... appears as a normal pulsar for about a week and then 'switches off' for about one month before emitting pulses again. [..] this pulsar slows down more rapidly when the pulsar is on than when it is off. [.. the] braking mechanism must be related to the radio emission and the processes creating it and the additional slow-down can be explained by the pulsar wind leaving the pulsar's magnetosphere and carrying away rotational energy.[17]
  • PSR J0108-1431, the closest known pulsar to the Earth. It lies in the direction of the constellation Cetus, at a distance of about 85 parsecs (280 light years). Nevertheless, it was not discovered until 1993 due to its extremely low luminosity. It was discovered by the Danish astronomer Thomas Tauris.[18] in collaboration with a team of Australian and European astronomers using the Parkes 64-meter radio telescope. The pulsar is 1000 times weaker than an average radio pulsar and thus this pulsar may represent the tip of an iceberg of a population of more than half a million such dim pulsars crowding our Milky Way.[19][20]
  • A pulsar in the CTA 1 supernova remnant initially emitted radiation in the X-ray bands. Strangely, when it was observed at a later time X-ray radiation was not detected. Instead, the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope detected the pulsar was emitting gamma ray radiation, the first of its kind.[7]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Young, M.D.; Manchester, R.N.; Johnston, S. "A Radio Pulsar with an 8.5-Second Period that Challenges Emission Models." Nature, Volume 400, 26 August 1999 (pages 848-849).
  2. ^ D.N. Matsakis, J.H. Taylor and T.M. Eubanks. "A Statistic for Describing Pulsar and Clock Stabilities." Astronomy and Astrophysics, Volume 326, October 1997 (pages 924-928).
  3. ^ Press Release: Old Pulsars Still Have New Tricks to Teach Us. European Space Agency, 26 July 2006.
  4. ^ Sturrock, Peter A. The UFO Enigma: A New Review of the Physical Evidence. Warner Books, 1999 (page 154).
  5. ^ Courtland, Rachel. "Pulsar Detected by Gamma Waves Only." New Scientist, 17 October 2008.
  6. ^ Daily Telegraph, 21/3, 5 March 1968.
  7. ^ a b Atkinson, Nancy. "Fermi Telescope Makes First Big Discovery: Gamma Ray Pulsar." Universe Today, 17 October 2008.
  8. ^ NASA'S Fermi Telescope Unveils a Dozen New Pulsars http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/GLAST/news/dozen_pulsars.html
  9. ^ Cosmos Online - New Kind of pulsar discovered (http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/2260/new-kind-pulsar-discovered)
  10. ^ Lyne, Andrew G.; Graham-Smith, Francis. Pulsar Astronomy. Cambridge University Press, 1998.
  11. ^ Ferriere, K. "The Interstellar Environment of Our Galaxy." Reviews of Modern Physics, Volume 73, Issue 4, 2001 (pages 1031–1066).
  12. ^ Taylor, J. H.; Cordes, J. M. "Pulsar Distances and the Galactic Distribution of Free Electrons." Astrophysical Journal, Volume 411, 1993 (page 674).
  13. ^ Rickett, Barney J. "Radio Propagation Through the Turbulent Interstellar Plasma." Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Volume 28, 1990 (page 561).
  14. ^ Rickett, Barney J.; Lyne, Andrew G.; Gupta, Yashwant. "Interstellar Fringes from Pulsar B0834+06." Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 287, 1997 (page 739).
  15. ^ Hewish, A. et al. "Observation of a Rapidly Pulsating Radio Source." Nature, Volume 217, 1968 (pages 709-713).
  16. ^ "Galactic Magnetar Throws Giant Flare." Astronomy Picture of the Day, 21 February 2005.
  17. ^ "Part-Time Pulsar Yields New Insight Into Inner Workings of Cosmic Clocks." Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council, 3 March 2006.
  18. ^ Tauris, T. M. et al. "Discovery of PSR J0108-1431: The Closest Known Neutron Star?" Astrophysical Journal, Volume 428, 1994 (page L53).
  19. ^ Crowsell, K. "Science: Dim Pulsars May Crowd Our Galaxy." New Scientist, Number 1930, 18 June 2008. (page 16).
  20. ^ "Closest Pulsar?" Sky & Telescope, October 1994 (page 14).
  21. ^ Champion, David J. et al. "An Eccentric Binary Millisecond Pulsar in the Galactic Plane." Science, 6 June 2008 Volume 320, Number 5881 (pages 1309-1312).

References and further reading

External links


Translations: Pulsar
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Dansk (Danish)
n. - pulsar

Nederlands (Dutch)
pulsar, bron van pulserende straling uit het heelal

Français (French)
n. - pulsar

Deutsch (German)
n. - Pulsar

Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - (αστρον.) πάλσαρ

Italiano (Italian)
pulsar

Português (Portuguese)
n. - pulsar (m) (Astr.)

Русский (Russian)
пульсар

Español (Spanish)
n. - objeto celestial considerado como una estrella de neutrones rotantes

Svenska (Swedish)
n. - pulsar (astron.)

中文(简体)(Chinese (Simplified))
脉冲星

中文(繁體)(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 脈衝星

한국어 (Korean)
n. - 펄서(전파 천체의 하나)

日本語 (Japanese)
n. - 脈動星, パルサー

العربيه (Arabic)
‏(الاسم) نجم يبث ترددات‏

עברית (Hebrew)
n. - ‮כוכב הפולט פעימות סדירות של גלי-רדיו וגלים אלקטרו-מגנטיים אחרים‬


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