Black Widow Pulsars: The Vengeful Corpses of Stars

09 Jul 2024 • 61 min • EN
61 min
00:00
01:01:47
No file found

With Dr. Roger Romani (Stanford University): NASA"s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has revealed a violent high-energy universe full of stellar explosions, black hole jets, and pulsing stars.  These cosmic objects are often faint when observed with visible light, but glow bright with gamma rays.   Dr. Romani describes the quest to discover the true nature of the most puzzling of these gamma-ray sources.  Several turn out to be a kind of bizarre star corpse called a "black widow" pulsar -- where a dead star has a companion that it is slowly destroying. This is a talk from 2014, but it is still relevant today.

From "Silicon Valley Astronomy Lectures"

Listen on your iPhone

Download our iOS app and listen to interviews anywhere. Enjoy all of the listener functions in one slick package. Why not give it a try?

App Store Logo
application screenshot

Popular categories