Episode 80: The Pulsar Boomerang

In this week’s episode, we meet some of the animals in the neutron star zoo through astrobites with two surprising observations. Will tells us about a mysterious signal from a magnetar that appeared two years ago for 20 minutes and has yet to come back. Meanwhile, Cormac provides Will’s magnetar with some hope by telling us the story of a pulsar signal that appeared 20 years ago and just reappeared recently. Come along for a boomerang of a journey as we discuss observing pulsars from Earth, what it’s like at the pulsars themselves, and all the way back to Earth for a discussion of bad naming and bad programming languages.

Astrobites:

https://astrobites.org/2023/07/31/disappearing-pulsar/

https://astrobites.org/2023/08/21/long-period-magnetar/

Space Sound: 

https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/musicshow/the-black-of-the-star--for-percussion-and-pulsar/5011294

Performance: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=okeBqktyyS4