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Article: Puzzling particle showers point to pulsars.
- Article from:
- Science News
- Article date:
- October 29, 1988
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1988 Science Service, Inc. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Puzzling Particle Showers Point to Pulsars
Bursts of mysterious, high-energy particles beamed from a distant star sound more like something Buck Rogers would encounter than the stuff of physics. Nevertheless, data from two sets of detectors at the Los Alamos (N.M.) National Laboratory show that the neutron star Hercules X-1, about 15,000 light-years away, is the source of surprisingly powerful pulses of what appear to be neutral particles. The discovery has led some physicists to speculate that the particles are of a previously unknown type or that gamma rays behave in unexpected ways at extremely high energies.
Hercules X-1, composed mainly of neutrons, ...