Geminga

Geminga is a neutron star approximately 250 parsecs

Pulsar

The nature of Geminga was quite unknown for 20 years after its discovery by NASA's Second Small Astronomy Satellite (SAS-2). Finally, in March 1991 the ROSAT satellite detected a periodicity of 0.237 seconds in soft x-ray emission. Thus, it is supposed that Geminga is a sort of neutron star: the decaying core of a massive star that exploded as a supernova about 300,000 years ago.

This nearby explosion may be responsible for the low density of the interstellar medium in the immediate vicinity of the Solar System. This low-density area is known as the Local Bubble. Possible evidence for this includes findings by the Arecibo Observatory that local micrometre-sized interstellar meteor particles appear to originate from its direction.

Discovery and identification

Geminga was the first example of an unidentified gamma-ray source, a source which could not be associated with any objects known at other wavelengths. It was first detected as a significant excess of gamma-rays over the expected background of diffuse Galactic emission, by the SAS-2 satellite (Fictel et al. 1975) and subsequently by the COS-B satellite. The SAS-2 group reported a pulsation in the gamma-ray signal, with period approximately 59 s, although the limited number of detected gamma-rays (121 over a period of four months) led them to conclude that the pulsation was not statistically compelling. Due to the limited angular resolution of the instrument (approximately 2.5° at 100MeV) and the small number of gamma-rays detected, the exact location of the source was uncertain, constrained only to be within a relatively large "error region". At the time of detection, four weak radio sources were known within this region, two supernova remnants bordered it and a known satellite galaxy to the Milky Way lay nearby. None of these known sources were convincing associations to the gamma-ray source, and the SAS-2 team suggested that an undiscovered radio-pulsar was the most likely progenitor.

Despite the investment of a significant amount of observation time, the source remained unidentified through the COS-B era; their data did, however, rule out the claimed 59 s pulsation. Many claims were made about the source during this time, but its nature remained a mystery until the identification of a candidate source by the Einstein x-ray satellite, 1E 0630+178. which was also seen in gamma-rays by the EGRET instrument and retrospectively in the COS-B and SAS-2 data.

Geminga is the first example of a radio-quiet pulsar, and serves as an illustration of the difficulty of associating gamma-ray emission with objects known at other wavelengths: either no credible object is detected in the error region of the gamma-ray source, or a number are present and some characteristic of the gamma-ray source, such as periodicity or variability, must be identified in one of the prospective candidates (or vice-versa as in the case of Geminga).

Proper motion

The proper motion of Geminga is 178.2 mas/year which corresponds to a projected velocity of 205 kilometers per second. This is very fast for a star, comparable to Barnard's star.

Possible planetary system

In 1997, John Mattox et al. claimed to have discovered a planet orbiting Geminga by gamma-ray timing of Geminga. This hypothesized planet, Geminga b, was thought to orbit about 3.3 AU from Geminga in a 5.1 year orbit. With a mass of 1.7 Earths, Geminga b would be a terrestrial planet. However, this discovery is now doubtful because recent analysis of the data indicates that the detected timing changes were due to signal noise, not a planet.

References

C. E. Fichtel et al. High-energy gamma-ray results from the second small astronomy satellite. ApJ, 198:163–182, May 1975.

External links

Spaceflight Now: 'Cannonball pulsar' seen flying across space

ESA: Hipparcos pinpoints an amazing gamma-ray clock

Extrasolar Visions: Geminga + Geminga b

Category:Gemini constellation Category:Neutron stars Category:Pulsars