First-Known Double Pulsar Opens Up New Astrophysics

An international team of scientists from the UK, Australia, Italy and the USA have announced in the today's issue of the journal Science Express (8th January 2004) the first discovery of a double pulsar system.

They have shown that the compact object orbiting the 23-millisecond pulsar PSR J0737-3039A with a period of just 2.4 hours is not only, as suspected, another neutron star but is also a detectable pulsar, PSR J0737-3039B, that is rotating once every 2.8 seconds.

Added by Andrew Wright on 2004-01-09