30 years after its discovery, astronomers realize the first confirmed exoplanet is truly rare
In 1992, astronomers discovered the first exoplanet in an unexpected part of the universe: around a pulsar, a rapidly rotating stellar corpse. Not many other pulsar planets have been discovered since then, and with potentially good reason: In new research detailed July 12 at the National Astronomical Meeting in the UK, astronomers are now discovering that such pulsar worlds may prove extremely rare. Here’s the background- Astronomers discovered the first known exoplanet around the pulsar PSR B1257+12 in 1992, located about 2,300 light-years from Earth in the constellation Virgo. A pulsar is a type of neutron star, the corpse of a star that dies in a cataclysmic explosion known as a supernova, whose gravity is strong enough to crush protons together with electrons to form neutrons — but not massive enough to become a black hole. The violent nature of supernovae often makes the remnants of their ancestral stars spin. A rotating neutron star can spin up to 700 times per second, emittin