The discovery of extrasolar planets or exoplanets in 1992, not the Solar System, made waves when two astronomers, Alexander Wolszczan and Dale Frail, brought attention to their discovery in a paper published in Nature.
Planets Outside the Solar System
These dual exoplanets are exciting, and these rocky worlds are about 4.3 and 3.9 times the size of earth, remarked Wired. Both held orbit around a dead star known as a millisecond pulsar called PSR B1257+12, otherwise known as Lich. A third exo-world is 0.2 times as big as earth; verified in 1994.
A conclusion reached by researchers studying countless pulsars think these worlds are rarer than thought and are disappearing, reported Science Alert.
Pulsars are uncommon, too, with 3,320 detected in the Milky Way during writing, and 0.5 percent are to be earth-like too. Even millisecond pulsar is less than 550 in the known Milky Way. Even lich stars add spice to astronomical discovery.
Lich stars are neutron stars with a burnt-out core and no more matter that is second to a black hole. Their size is about 2.3 solar masses, compressed into a 12-mile-long sphere.
A pulsar would spin on its axis while emitting radiation outbursts from the poles; similar to a cosmic lighthouse in the unfathomable interstellar void, some may have an extrasolar planet or two.
Some of these pulsars spin so fast that their radio signal is hard to catch on a millisecond scale.
Exoplanets Co-Exist With Neutron Star
In places of high gravitations ripping apart planets bigger than the earth, these zombie stars and paired exoplanets are few. These exo-worlds are torn asunder by tidal forces of unbelievable gravity.
Iuliana Niţu of the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom led a team of astronomers that aimed to find out how common pulsar planets are.
They investigated 800 pulsars recorded by the Jodrell Bank Observatory in the United Kingdom, searching for blips in pulse frequency that might suggest the possibility of neighboring exoplanets.
The first extrasolar planets were discovered around a pulsar some 30 years ago, but we still don't know how these planets create and survived in such harsh environments.
The first set of criteria sought planets with orbital periods ranging from 20 days to 17 years and masses ranging from 1% of the mass of the Moon to 100 times that of the earth.
These search options would have found Poltergeist and Phobetor, Lich's two bigger planets, that have orbital periods of 66 and 98 days, respectively.
According to the research team, fewer than 0.5 percent of the sample's pulsars are likely to house exoplanets with masses between Poltergeist and Phobetor, and two-thirds of them are exceedingly unlikely to do so. It is a little more challenging to estimate the presence of exoplanets like the smaller exoplanet Draugr in the Lich system.
Draugr's modest mass and 25-day orbit prevent its identification in 95% of the team's collection since it is shrouded by ambient noise.
Fifteen of the 800 pulsars displayed periodic signals for which rocky planets might be accountable. However, assume that the pulsar's magnetosphere is responsible for most of them. PSR J2007+3120 stood out as a very good target for further exoplanet surveys.
These extrasolar planets that will be seen orbiting a lich star are left to be seen; due to gravity tearing them apart or false signals. It's like a needle in an interstellar haystack.
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