Faster-than-light pulsar radio waves found

Are we in for a change in the laws of the Universe? This is I feel an important discovery that a pulsar is emitting radio waves faster than light. SO we have for the first time seen an object in the Universe breaking the light barrier. So we are seeing in the future as far as this pulsar is concened, because even though it it 10000 light years away, it's light (radio waves) is reaching us faster than where the pulsar is supposed to be.

I feel there may be some sort of communication in the universe that travels faster than light, and if this find is true then atleast we know that we can go faster than light.

Astrophysicists working out of the University of Texas at Brownsville have been studying an interesting pulsar about 10,000 light years away from us (a pulsar is a highly magnetic, spinning corpse of a dead star). Over the course of three days of monitoring, radio waves emitted from the pulsar seem to have been traveling faster than the speed of light.

You might have heard that faster-than-light travel is impossible. This is not entirely true -- there are a couple of catches which allow for F.T.L velocities. One such catch, as originally proposed by Mr. Einstein, is that something can travel faster than light if it does not contain information. This physical law has been observed on Earth in experiments, but with this pulsar (if confirmed), this is the first time this sort of thing has been observed off of our planet. What does or does not constitute information in this context however, is the subject of both rigorous study and debate.

The radio pulse from the pulsar is suspected to have picked up some of the excess speed by passing through a cloud of neutral hydrogen atoms, which causes the radio waves to increase their electromagnetic wavelength (a process called "anomalous dispersion").

Source: www.neoseeker.com...





[edit on 18-1-2010 by sunny_2008ny]

Found another source

www.physorg.com...

This phenomenon can be classidied as a sort of "cosmic illusion". Radio waves always travel at exactly the speed of light, no more, no less. But the angle from the source.

I have an astronomy book that has a short article on precisely this phenomenon, I will quote it:

"Some quasars and blazars appear to defy the laws of physics. Image sequences, taken years apart, show jets of material blasting away from the nucleus, apparently traveling faster than the speed of light. This apparent motion is called "superluminal". In reality, it is an illusion, created when jets traveling at very high speeds, of up to 99 percent of the speed of light, happen to be pointing almost directly toward us."

reply to post by sunny_2008ny


Even the quote you chose said this phenomenon has already been discovered and is explainable by our current laws

I was reading an article last week about this phenomenon.

Using the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico, they took radio data of the pulsar PSR B1937+21 at 1420.4 MHz with a 1.5 MHz bandwidth for three days. Oddly, those pulses close to the centre value arrived earlier than would be expected given the pulsar's normal timing, and therefore appeared to have travelled faster than the speed of light.

From here
Pulsar bursts move faster than light.

Certainly interesting reading.Even if it is way over my head.

We have known for a long time that it is possible to travel faster than light.

Tachyons travel faster than light.

reply to post by Itop1


Tachyons is a mythical creature that is yet to see.