School children discovered the largest known double neutron star systems.

How the artist imagines a pulsar / B. Saxton (NRAO / AUI / NSF)

If you do not have a telescope, this does not mean that you cannot make scientific discoveries in astronomy. A group of students as a workshop analyzed data collected by the Green Bank radio telescope and provided by the National Science Foundation (NSF), and found a pulsar with unusual characteristics .

The pulsar PSR J1930-1852 is a system of two neutron stars orbiting each other at a distance of 52 million kilometers (which roughly corresponds to the distance from the Sun to Mercury). The largest distance between neutron stars, known before, was two times smaller. And usually neutron stars are even closer to each other - sometimes the distance between them is comparable to the diameter of the sun.
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Students made their discovery during the optional summer program Pulsar Search Collaboratory PSC, funded by the NSF. Students interested in radio astronomy spend time studying data from a radio telescope and look for signs of pulsars. Those who find a suitable set of data are invited to work with astronomers at Green Bank.


Green Bank Radio Telescope

Pulsars are rapidly rotating neutron stars, the remnants of burned out, exploded and disposed of most of the mass of ordinary stars. The magnetic field created by the rotation emits radio waves from its poles. If the planet Earth comes across an intensive radio beam, it can be fixed using a radio telescope.

About 10 percent of pulsars are part of binary systems. They arise after an uneven supernova explosion gives impetus to the remains of a star that has turned into a neutron star . On its way, a neutron star can meet another and get into the region of mutual attraction. Such events by the standards of the universe occur relatively rarely.