Listen to this sound, which has been recorded pointing a radiotelescope towards the constellation of Vela.
Now imagine that you are the first to ever record such a signal, and have the confirmation that it can not be some kind of man-made radio frequency interference. The idea of an alien origin would occur to you. This is the fascinating story of the discovery of pulsars.
The first pulsar was observed on November 28, 1967, by Jocelyn Bell Burnell and Antony Hewish.The observed emission from the pulsar was pulses separated by 1.33 seconds, originated from the same location on the sky, and kept to sidereal time. In looking for explanations for the pulses, the short period of the pulses eliminated most astrophysical sources of radiation, such as stars, and since the pulses followed sidereal time, it could not be man-made radio frequency interference. When observations with another telescope confirmed the emission, it eliminated any sort of instrumental effects.
At this point, Burnell notes of herself and Hewish that "we did not really believe that we had picked up signals from another civilization, but obviously the idea had crossed our minds and we had no proof that it was an entirely natural radio emission. It is an interesting problem—if one thinks one may have detected life elsewhere in the universe, how does one announce the results responsibly?" Even so, they nicknamed the signal LGM-1, for "little green men" (a playful name for intelligent beings of extraterrestrial origin).
It was not until a second pulsating source was discovered in a different part of the sky that the "LGM hypothesis" was entirely abandoned.
A pulsar (portmanteau of pulsating star) is a highly magnetized, rotating neutron star that emits a beam of electromagnetic radiation. This radiation can only be observed when the beam of emission is pointing toward the Earth, much the way a lighthouse can only be seen when the light is pointed in the direction of an observer, and is responsible for the pulsed appearance of emission.
In 1974, Antony Hewish became the first astronomer to be awarded the Nobel Prize in physics.
Pulsar maps have been included on the two Pioneer Plaques as well as the Voyager Golden Record. They show the position of the Sun, relative to 14 pulsars, which are identified by the unique timing of their electromagnetic pulses, so that our position both in space and in time can be calculated by potential extraterrestrial intelligences.
[the plaque attached to Pioneer 10]
[source]
No comments:
Post a Comment