Thursday, September 15 2005 13:12 Hrs (IST) - World Time -

New Delhi: Ending a long astronomical search, a team of Indian and British scientists has finally found a celestial body called pulsar, which has long been missing, from remnants of a star that exploded hundreds of years ago.

The discovery of this pulsar has been made by scientists from the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, Pune and Mullard Astronomy Observatory, Cambridge, along with a student from the National Institute of Technology, Durgapur. "The discovery has been made in India using an Indian telescope called Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope (GMRT)," Dr Y Gupta from TIFR told sources. The GMRT is located at Khodad, about 80 kms from Pune.

This pulsar, named `PSR J1833-1034' is the second such body discovered by Indian scientists using GMRT, while more such announcements are expected by other groups using the same facility, he said.

A pulsar is a rotating neutron star that generates regular pulses of radiation. A neutron star is a very compact star - only ten to fifteen kilometers in radius, but contains as much mass as the Sun.

It is a remnant of Supernova explosion - death explosion of a massive star - in which gravity causes the central core of the original star to collapse into a compact ball, composed primarily of neutrons.

"Since pulsars are neutron stars that are thought to be produced from collapsed stellar cores left behind in Supernova explosions, it is natural to expect Supernova Remnants (SNRs) to harbour young pulsars," the team reported in the journal `Current Science'.