Timing a neutron jet with a speed gun
This month, Space Connect reported how researchers operating the Australia Telescope Compact Array (ATCA) in NSW used an athletics-style method to measure the speed of neutron star jets.
The international team timed the phenomenon like a \u201c100-metre sprinter\u201d to record that it travelled at 114,000 kilometres per second \u2013 one-third the speed of light.
In this episode, Tom Russell, who led the research, talks through the mysterious jets and how they developed a new way to track them.
Plus, he discusses why the ATCA telescope is still such a pioneering machine and what the future of the research holds.\xa0