back to article Boffins baffled over pulsar with 'split personality'

A pulsar that randomly and without warning dramatically changes its pattern of radio wave and X-ray emissions has surprised a team of astronomers, who wrote that it "challenges all proposed pulsar emission theories". A pulsar with glowing cones of radiation Pulsars are spinning neutron stars the size of a small city, with a …

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  1. Miguel Farah
    Trollface

    What if there are TWO pulsars?

    And these two are close together and transit over each other?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Some

      Some alien nerd sitting in his bedroom on a nearby planet messing with pulsars to confuse the Universe.

      1. haloburn
        Alien

        Re: Some

        Power source for a type 3 civilisation

  2. Tom Chiverton 1
    Alien

    Do aliens use morse ?

    1. Chemist

      dash dot dash dash dash

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Joke

        Your fist sucks, man

        .-- .... . .-. . ... - .... . .. -. - . .-. .-.. . - - . .-. --. .- .--. - .... . .-. . .. - ... -. --- - .- .--. .-. --- ... .. --. -. ..--..

        -. ---

        hihi

        1. Martin Huizing
          Trollface

          Re: Your fist sucks, man: But Charmap rules!

          –•–– ––– ••– / •– •–• • / ••• – ••– •––• •• –•• / •• ••–• / –•–– ––– ••– / –•–• •– –• / •–• • •– –•• / – •••• •• •••

          Go to: http://morsecode.scphillips.com/jtranslator.html for translation!

  3. Silverburn
    Coat

    "The behaviour of this pulsar is quite startling, it’s as if it has two distinct personalities,

    I promised myself I wouldn't go there...but I will:

    ...does this behaviour appear to change regularly on an almost monthly basis...?

    The brown one. Quickly. I have to run.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Think... electricity.

  5. Filippo Silver badge
    Alien

    C'tan communication?

  6. kyza

    Malfunctioning power source...

    ...for some alien superweapon.

    Pulsars are the discarded magazine clips of the Vl'Hurg Imperium.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

      Re: Malfunctioning power source...

      > clips

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Malfunctioning power source...

      Bored pedant here. It's either a magazine or a clip. I have never heard of a magazine clip.

      1. MadChemist
        FAIL

        Re: Malfunctioning power source...

        Well... I hate to disagree, but then again, English is not my native language.

        Also, I am aware that clips are used to load magazines, and that the terms are used interchangeably, though technically incorrectly, particularly in the FPS gaming crowd.

        However, there are variants of "clip", such as a money clip, video clip, paper clip, battery clip, alligator clip... need I go on? Thus, most clips I come across have nothing to do with guns - in fact, I have only ever seen pictures of a (cartridge) clip. A magazine clip in the context of weaponry - space based or otherwise - would no doubt refer to a clip intended to load a magazine.

  7. ElNumbre
    Alien

    Trans-Warp Conduit

    The Trans-warp conduits emit different signals based upon if something is passing into, or out of, the aperture.

    Maybe?

  8. Tom 7

    Sounds like its still eating its partner

    It there's a lot of gas still circling around it from time to time a cloud of it will be pulled in and crash into the surface releasing xrays and at the same time blocking the radio emissions.

  9. jubtastic1
    Childcatcher

    "Any sufficiently advanced magic is indistinguishable from technology"

    -Paul Daniels

  10. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    It's the Cheela SETI project

    It's the Cheela SETI project, sending out a signal to anybody listening.

    It's a very long-term project - it's been running for hours!

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheela

  11. Robert E A Harvey

    Quadrature Amplitude Modulation

    Someone is sending cat pictures to another galaxy

  12. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Obvious innit?

    It means scientists don't understand *everything*

    Therefore they don't know anything.

    = It is proof of God's existence.

    (copyright @pontifex)

    1. Chemist

      Re: Obvious innit?

      Surely

      Yours _infallibly@pontifex

  13. Psyx
    Pint

    I for one...

    ...welcome our ultra-dense overlords.

    Oh, too late; they've already filled parliament.

  14. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Well

    There is a theory that life (but not as we know it) might be able to evolve on the surface of neutron stars.

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge

      Re: Well

      That was "Dragon's Egg" I think. A jolly good read, indeed.

  15. This post has been deleted by its author

  16. bag o' spanners
    Pint

    A pint for your thoughts.

    Is it possible that its output wavelength is oscillating from gamma to x-ray spectra and back? Overmodulation of the output signal, for whatever wibbly cosmic yoyo reason, might be creating a funky meandering square wave that's defining what we can record from our limited perspective with our primitive earth technology..

    Alternatively, wouldn't it only require huge pulses of intense x-ray to mask the visible gamma frequencies, or vice versa? I'm sure some of those fancyarse disco lights use similar trickery in the visible spectrum..

    I can't help thinking of it as an early Moog star with oscillators that randomly drift in and out of tune.

  17. HelpfulJohn
    Gimp

    Cheela do.

    Or at least did, or will for a time a few years from now when the "Dragon Slayer" teaches them the great game of Civilisation. Dr. Forward's aliens wouldn't be using "morse" now as we haven't gone there to lift them up.

    Of course there's a chance these new aliens living on the neutron star uplifted themselves. That would be ever so cool.

    I wonder if they'd even see planets like ours? Or would they zip by in a rush to get to other "Goldilocks" stars on the other side of what they would consider useless Sol?

    Neutron-star alien Galactic Empire next week?

  18. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Must be some kind of hormonal imbalance...

    .. anon.. in case the wife reads it.

  19. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    So, what happened to the quark star hypothesis for PSR B0943+10

    Warning: PDF!

    http://arxiv.org/pdf/astro-ph/0603468.pdf

    1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
      Pint

      Very interesting indeed.

      But now .... quickly say ten times "bare quark star" and "quare bark star". I dare you!

  20. Spoonsinger

    Re :- neutron stars the size of a small city?

    What like St Asaph?

  21. Crisp

    Changes in the pulsar are like a chameleon

    They come and go... They come and go

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