The discovery of a small fast spinning star known as a pulsar has led to astronomers to detect a companion planet, likely made of diamond. This is only the second time a planetary mass has been found orbiting a pulsar. The first planetary system outside of our solar system was discovered around a pulsar in 1992. The international research team led by Professor Matthew Bailes of the Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne have published their findings in the journal Science . Co-investigator Dr Willem van Straten, also at Swinburne, says that this millisecond pulsar (MSP), so named because it rotates thousands of times per second, was detected in the Milky Way galaxy by the Parkes radio telescope. "To date, we've discovered 20 millisecond pulsars in the High Time Resolution Universe survey. All of them are in binary systems [where one object orbits around another], but only this one has a companion with a planet-like mass," says van Straten. He says have a stron...
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