With a remarkable observational campaign that involved 12 telescopes both on the ground and in space, including three European Southern Observatory (ESO) facilities, astronomers have uncovered the strange behavior of a pulsar, a super-fast-spinning dead star.
This mysterious object is known to switch between two brightness modes almost constantly, something that until now has been an enigma.
PSR J1023+0038, or J1023 for short, is a special type of pulsar with a bizarre behavior. Located about 4,500away in the Sextans constellation, it closely orbits another star. Over the past decade, the pulsar has been actively pulling matter off this companion, which accumulates in a disk around the pulsar and slowly falls towards it.
Since this process of accumulating matter began, the sweeping beam virtually vanished and the pulsar started incessantly switching between two modes. In the 'high' mode, the pulsar gives off bright X-rays, ultraviolet and, while in the 'low' mode it's dimmer at these frequencies and emits more radio waves. The pulsar can stay in each mode for several seconds or minutes, and then switch to the other mode in just a few seconds. This switching has thus far puzzled astronomers.
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