Previously, the nebula CTA 1 showed an expanding supernova remnant, a jet, and a point source expected to be a pulsar. But no radio pulses were detected. NASA’s Fermi Space Telescope has solved the mystery with some of its initial observations indicating that the point source is pulsing at gamma-ray energies. The strange source is the first of a class that might be dubbed “dark pulsars”, rotating neutron stars that appear to pulse only in high-energy radiations.
June 28, 2017