Pulsars areneutron stars emitting periodic radiation. The word pulsar is an acronym in English forpulsating star, which expresses the condition of a star that emits very intense radiation at short and regular intervals. These heavenly bodieshave a very high intensity magnetic fieldwhich induces them to emit those pulses of electromagnetic radiation at regular intervals, in relation to the period of rotation of the pulsar. In fact these starsthey turn on themselves up to several hundred times per secondor. This implies that a point on its surface may bemoving at speeds of 70,000 kilometers per second. Well, according to a recent scientific study, theoreticallyhabitable planets may exist around pulsars. The condition for this to happen is that they havea very dense atmosphere that converts X-rays and high-energy particles from the pulsar into heat. The authors of the research, which has appeared published in the journalAstronomy & Astrophysicsare astronomers Alessandro Patruno, who works at the Leiden Observatory, in the Netherlands, and Mihkel Kama, from the Institute of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge, in the United Kingdom.
Pulsars are known for theirextreme conditions. They are neutron stars that are only 10 to 30 kilometers in diameter. They are subjected to brutal magnetic fields, accumulate matter, and regularly emit large amounts of X-rays and other energetic particles. But despite that, Alessandro Patruno and Mihkel Kama suggest that there could be life in the vicinity of these stars.
This is the first time that a team of astronomers has tried to find potentially habitable zones or planets near these types of neutron stars. According to the calculations they have carried out,the habitable zone around a neutron star can be as great as the distance from the Earth to the Sun. And what conditions should a planet located in that area have to be able to host life? A necessary condition is that you have thecharacteristics of a Super-Earth whose mass is one to 10 times greater than that of our planet. If it were smaller, it would lose its atmosphere in a few thousand years. Furthermore, its atmosphere should be at least a million times denser than Earth’s. Conditions on the pulsar-dependent planet’s surface could resemble thosein the depths of the sea.
The astronomers responsible for the research studied the pulsar PSR B1257 + 12, located about 2,300 light-years away in the constellation Virgo. For this they used the Chandra Space Telescope, which is specially designed to observe X-rays, and they saw thatthere are three planets orbiting the pulsar. Two of them are Super Earths with a mass four to five times that of Earth and orbit close enough to the pulsar to receive its heat. Patruno explains that according to his calculations, “the temperature on these planets could be adequate for there to be liquid water on their surface. What we still do not know is whether the atmosphere of the two Super Earths is dense enough. “Looking ahead to their next projects, these Leiden and Cambridge astronomers intend to make more detailed observations of the pulsar and compare it with other pulsars. They also hope that the ALMA telescope , from the European Southern Observatory, shows dust disks around neutron stars, which are good indicators of the existence of planets. It is estimated that the Milky Way contains about a billion neutron stars, of which around 200,000 are pulsars. So far 3,000 pulsars have been studied and only 5 pulsar planets have been found. PSR B1257 + 12 is one of the most studied and as early as 1992 the first exoplanets around this object were discovered.
