[X] My Assistant

[Mongo]

This has to be one of the most bizarre planets yet discovered. Not "merely" a pulsar planet, but a Jupiter-sized diamond orbiting a pulsar with a year lasting 2.2 hours. I wonder what the tidal forces are?

(I would think that radio telescopes are covered under "Telescopic Observations")

Pulsar in the Sky, With Diamonds

The object orbiting it is Jupiter mass, with some uncertainty in the exact mass due to as yet unmeasured inclination, has an orbital period of 2.2 hours! That implies an orbital radius less than a solar radius! The orbit is, near as we can tell, perfectly circular. Further, the object is not overflowing its Roche lobe, implying a minimum mean density of 23! Possibly considerably larger.

From both observational constraints, and from theoretical grounds based on models of the origin of the object, it is most likely a pure cold crystalline carbon core of a low mass star, with the rest of the star accreted, blown away and ablated by the millisecond pulsar formation process.

Yes, it is a 10^31 carat diamond. That is 10,000,000 trillion trillion carats of hot sparkly rock!

[Astro0]

How long until the media starts calling PSR J1719-1438 "Lucy" as in, "...in the sky with diamonds"

[Hungry4info]

How long until the media starts calling PSR J1719-1438 "Lucy" as in, "...in the sky with diamonds"

As soon as they forget about having already used that for BPM 37093.