Einstein@Home reveals true identity of mysterious gamma-ray source

An international research team including members from the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics (Albert Einstein Institute; AEI) in Hannover has shown that a rapidly rotating neutron star is at the core of a celestial object now known as PSR J2039'5617. They used novel data analysis methods and the enormous computing power of the citizen science project Einstein@Home to track down the neutron star's faint gamma-ray pulsations in data from NASA's Fermi Space Telescope. Their results show...