20th of December 2017 |
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A low-luminosity millisecond pulsar with a planetary-mass companion |
by Simon Johnston (CASS) |
Spiewak et al. report on the discovery of a fascinating millisecond pulsar
as part of the High Time Resolution Universe (HTRU) survey on the Parkes radio
telescope. PSR J2322-6250 has one of the lowest magnetic field strengths and
one of the lowest radio luminosities of any of the known milliseconds pulsars.
In addition, it forms part of a binary system with a companion which has a mass
of only 0.001 solar masses (i.e. planetary mass). The companion has been
detected in the optical. The figure shows the spin-down energy of millisecond pulsars versus their radio luminosity with J2322-6250 in the bottom left. - Reference: Spiewak et al. 2017, MNRAS, in press |