An Etymological Dictionary of Astronomy and Astrophysics
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A → pulsar with a period of 59 milliseconds (17 pulses per second) moving around a compact companion in an elongated orbit (period 7.75 hours). It is thought that the companion is probably also a → neutron star with the same mass as the pulsar (1.4 solar masses). The orbit is gradually shrinking because of → gravitational radiation, as predicted by the theory of → general relativity. See also → binary pulsar, → millisecond pulsar.

Named after the American physicists Russell Hulse and Joseph Taylor of Princeton University, who discovered the pulsar in 1974, for which they shared the 1993 Nobel prize in physics; → pulsar.