3rd December 2013, 1 min read

Astronomy at Home – Brian Koberlein

Great article about Einstein@Home by Brian Koberlein: Astronomy at Home – Brian Koberlein.

This is interesting in particular:

The team used the distributed computing network to analyze x-ray data from the Fermi gamma ray telescope. From this they found four new gamma ray pulsars.

Most gamma ray pulsars are also radio pulsars. Since radio astronomy is easier than gamma ray astronomy, most gamma ray pulsars are first discovered at radio wavelengths and then demonstrated to be gamma ray pulsars as well. These new pulsars were discovered directly. What’s more, they are quiet at radio wavelengths, so they couldn’t have been discovered that way.