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Accessibility & LanguageNews Archive 2019
GASP heading for the 8m Gemini South telescope, Chile
An artist’s view showing how light coming from the surface of a strongly magnetic neutron star (left) becomes linearly polarised on its way to an observer on Earth (right). Credit ESO/L. Calcada.
Mar
01
2019
Posted: 17:24 GMT
NUI Galway astronomers led by Prof Andy Shearer have recently been awarded observing time on the 8m Gemini South telescope in Chile to observe the isolated neutron star RX J1846.5-3754 using their Galway designed polarimeter, GASP (Galway Astronomical Stokes Polarimeter) . The star is highly magnetised with magnetic field about a million billion times stronger than the Earth’s magnetic field. Their aim is to observe the phenomena of birefringence, where the magnetic field itself causes the light from the star to become polarised. This will be an important test of one the fundamental theories of Physics – quantum electrodynamics. These observations, to be taken in July 2019, will be significant for both physics and astrophysics. Previous work has shown that such observations are possible and GASP will be able to show how the effect changes as the neutron star rotates.
