Idaho Skies Transcript for March 22nd, 23rd, and 24th

PAUL
Welcome to Idaho Skies for March 22nd, 23rd, and 24th. We’re your hosts, Paul...

RACHEL
...and Rachel.

PAUL
Astronomer Joseph Taylor celebrates his 78th birthday on the 24th.

RACHEL
Taylor, along with astronomer Russel Hulse won a Nobel Prize in 1993. The prize was for the discovery of the first binary pulsar. Pulsars are the remains of dead stars and binary means that two dead stars are orbiting each other. Pulsars are made of neutrons and are the result of massive stars collapsing at the end of their life. 

PAUL
Pulsars crush all their protons and electrons into neutrons. So they’re much smaller than the original star. Since atoms are mostly empty space, stars shrink from 100’s of thousands of miles across to only 20 miles across when they become neutron stars. That immense shrinkage means neutron stars have tremendous gravities. 

RACHEL
With their small sizes also comes a high spin rate. While an adult star like the sun rotates once a month, pulsars will rotate in just seconds to minutes. Their high density and high rotation rates makes neutron stars very accurate clocks. And this what made Taylor and Hulse’s binary pulsar discovery so important. 

PAUL
They determined that the orbital period, or year, of the binary pulsar was slowly decreasing. Now why should the pulsars’ year decreasing? Because the binary pair was losing orbital energy to their immense gravitational field. And this became the first, indirect discovery of gravity waves.

RACHEL
That’s Idaho Skies for the 22nd, 23rd, and 24th of March.

PAUL
Be sure to follow us on Twitter @IdahoSkies for this week’s event reminders and sky maps.

For Idaho Skies this is Paul...

RACHEL
...and Rachel.

RACHEL
Dark skies and bright stars.