Astronomers uncover 10 new dead star 'Monsters' in Milky Way; why scientists call it an exciting discovery

Astronomers have uncovered ten mysterious neutron stars near the Milky Way's core, all spinning rapidly and classified as "pulsars." These enigmatic stars, nestled in a dense globular cluster 18,000 light-years away, could possess bizarre and twisted forms due to their unique environment.

Spider Pulsars and Vampire Stars
Among the discoveries are several "spider pulsars" that destroy stars with plasma webs and a rapidly spinning "vampire star" that feeds on its companion stars. Pulsars are neutron stars that can spin up to 700 times per second, emitting beams of radiation from their poles that sweep across space like a lighthouse. These newly discovered pulsars are located in the globular cluster Terzan 5, home to hundreds of thousands of stars aged between 12 billion and 4.5 billion years.

Terzan 5: A Pulsar Hotspot
Astronomers already knew of 39 pulsars in Terzan 5, one of the most crowded regions in the Milky Way. "It's very unusual to find exotic new pulsars," said Scott Ransom, a scientist with the U.S. National Science Foundation National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NSF NRAO). "But what’s really exciting is the wide variety of such weirdos in a single cluster."

Tools and Techniques
Ransom and his colleagues discovered the pulsars using the Green Bank Telescope and the MeerKAT Telescope. By tracking the neutron stars' locations and timing their rotations with MeerKAT, and comparing this data to 20 years of Terzan 5 observations from the Green Bank Telescope, they uncovered the strange characteristics of these newly found stars.