Professor David Kaplan and the Pulsar PSR J2222-0137 and the Cool White Dwarf – Rihanna’s Diamond in the Sky Part 2

“Our final image should show us a companion 100 times fainter than any other white dwarf orbiting a neutron Star and about 10 times fainter than any known white dwarf, but we don’t see a thing. If there’s a white dwarf there, and there almost certainly is, it must be extremely cold.”

Dr. Bart Dunlap from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill explaining the published paper in the  Astrophysical Journal

Astronomers have hit the jackpot, yet again.

This time, it’s not another earth-like exoplanet like Kepler-186f in the Constellation Cygnus as described in my blog article entitled “NASA discovers earth-like exoplanet Kepler-186f in the Constellation Cygnus - 500 light years is awfully far distance to buy beachfront property”.

Rather it’s a White Dwarf orbiting a Pulsar in the Constellation Aquarius some 900 Light Years away that’s made purely of diamonds as announced in “Cold White dwarf Star is 'Earth-size Diamond in space'”, published June 24, 2014 11:07 AM PDT by Amanda Kooser, CNET News and “Ancient Earth-sized ‘diamond’ discovered in space”, published Tuesday June 24 2014 by Susan  Ryan, The Journal.ie. The discovery was published in the Astrophysical Journal.

Aside from being made from the priceless form of Carbon, at least as far as De Beers Cartel is concerned, it’s also the dimmest White Dwarf Star on record, possessing surface temperatures 5000 times lower than that of our own Sun. This may account for its composition, making it quite a rare find; A Pulsar in a binary configuration with a Cool White Dwarf Star.

Pulsar PSR J2222-0137 and the Cool White Dwarf – Rihanna’s Diamond in the Sky Part 2

The discovery was made by Dr. David Kaplan, a Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee using the three separate Telescopes for Radio Astronomy:

1.      NRAO (National Radio Astronomy Observatory)

2.      GBT (Green Bank Telescope)

3.      VLBA (Very Long Baseline Array)

Dr. Jason Boyles, who was a part of Professor David Kaplan’s team, used the GBT some two years ago in 2012 and discovered the binary dancing pair in the Constellation Aquarius as described in “Earth-size 'diamond' in space: Remarkable white dwarf Star possibly coldest, dimmest ever detected”, published June 23, 2014, Science Daily.

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Good to note that back then he was a graduate student at West Virginia University in Morgantown.  Based on his work, the Star was observed to orbit the Pulsar PSR J2222-0137 every 2.45 days and a rotational frequency of 30 Hz. Further observations by Dr. Adam Deller, an astronomer at ASTRON (Netherlands Institute for Radio Astronomy) established the distance to the Star as being about 900 Light Years as stated in “Astronomers Identify Earth-Size 'Diamond' in Space”, published June 23, 2014 04:58 PM EDT, Nature World News.

The Pulsar PSR J2222-0137, located 900 Light Years away in the Constellation Aquarius, had an irregular blip or delay in its Radio signal. That made them realize that the Pulsar, a Pulsating Neutron Star, probably had a companion and that every now and then, it passed in front of the Pulsar, temporarily blocking and absorbing some of the radiation from the Star.

Using the VLBA and Einstein’s Theory of Relativity, they realized that this object, based on its gravitational field's warping of space time which delayed the radio signal from the Pulsar PSR J2222-0137, was not another Pulsar but a Star. Based on their calculations, they estimated its age at some 11 billion years old, fairly young for a Star that was born around the same time as out Milky Way Galaxy.

Even more intriguing was that the Pulsar PSR J2222-0137 was 1.5 Solar Masses whereas the White Dwarf Star was 1.05 Solar Masses, suggesting that the White Dwarf Star, based on its material composition, was the same physical size as the Earth.

Even stranger, it didn't appear in Infrared. Otherwise SOAR (Southern Astrophysical Research) Telescope in Chile and the Keck Telescope in Hawaii with its 10 meter Mirror would have picked up its Infrared Signature a long time ago. This suggested that it had a very low surface temperature, which Dr. Kaplan Team estimated to be around 2,700 degrees Celsius (4,892 degrees Fahrenheit).

This isn’t the first time I’ve written about a diamond in the sky. In my blog article entitled “DARPA HTV-2 and 100-Year Interstellar Travel Research – Diamonds are Forever in the Stars” I mentioned a Star made up of diamonds. Interestingly too, on Jupiter and Saturn, it rains diamonds as explained in my blog article entitled “Mona L. Delitsky and Dr. Kevin H.Baines research indicates it rains Diamonds on Saturn and Jupiter - Mining Rihanna's Diamonds in the Sky to make Diamond Starships”.

So the idea of a White Dwarf that’s a large diamond didn’t seem so far-fetched, oweing to the fact that Jupiter and Saturn are Gas Giants and are classified as Brown Dwarfs, remnants of Stars that failed to ignite. At the pressures and temperatures on these objects, Carbon would fuse to form stable Diamond, as the temperatures are fairly cool, not enough for the material to ignite under pressure into Nuclear Fusion and burn like a regular Star, but cool enough to form Stable elements under high pressure, such as Diamonds.

The rest of its atmosphere may have been stripped off by the rapidly rotating Pulsar’s super strong Jets, Gravitational and Magnetic Field, leaving behind a cold Diamond Core.