May 6, 2014

Astronomers harness the galaxy’s biggest telescope to make most precise measurement of spinning star



An international team of astronomers has made a measurement of a distant neutron star that is one million times more precise than the previous world’s best.

The researchers were able to use the interstellar medium, the ‘empty’ space between stars and galaxies that is made up of sparsely spread charged particles, as a giant lens to magnify and look closely at the radio wave emission from a small rotating neutron star.