(ORDO NEWS) — Approximately 2300 light years from Earth is the pulsar PSR B1257+12. It flashes 161 times per second and is nicknamed the Lich after the undead from Western folklore. Three rocky planets revolve around it – Phobethor, Draugr and Poltergeist.
These planets hold a special place in the history of astronomy as they were the first planets discovered outside the solar system. This happened in 1991.
The discovery of these planets challenged ideas about the formation of planets. Usually it happens as a new star forms, but these planets appeared after a supernova explosion. It’s hard to say exactly how it happened.
The planet Draugr was named after the walking dead in Norse mythology. Its mass is about 2 times that of the Moon, and it is the least massive of all currently known planets. Its circulation period is 25 days.
The periods of revolution of Poltergeist and Phoebetor are 67 and 98 days, respectively, and the mass of each of these planets is approximately 4 times the mass of the Earth.
Pulsars have powerful magnetic fields that can allow electrical currents to arc through the space between the pulsar and the rotating planet. If these planets have an atmosphere, then permanent auroras could be observed on them.
If you were standing on the surface of one of these zombie worlds, then through the aurora borealis you would see a red-hot Lich in the sky, projecting two powerful beams of light into the blackness of space in opposite directions.
The planet PSR J1719-1438b is located at a distance of about 4000 light years. It orbits the pulsar PSR J1719-1438 in just over two hours. It is the densest planet ever discovered. It is believed that it consists mainly of diamond.
This diamond sphere is about half the size of Jupiter and orbits PSR J1719-1438 at a distance of 600,000 km. Probably due to its proximity to its star, this world has a very hot surface.
The globular star cluster Messier M4 lies about 5,600 light-years away and contains about 100,000 stars. Among them is a planet named Methuselah, in honor of the son of Enoch from the Book of Genesis, who allegedly lived for 969 years.
At the center of the M4 star cluster are a pulsar and a white dwarf that revolve around their common center of gravity every 161 days. The pulsar was presumably formed shortly after the formation of the cluster itself.
Methuselah also revolves around this center, but rotates about once every 100 years. It is a giant gas planet with a mass about 2.5 times that of Jupiter.
Methuselah is believed to have formed around a sun-like star during the first billion years after the formation of the universe. It was then captured by a pulsar, around which it has been orbiting ever since.
Methuselah is the oldest planet known to us, having formed approximately 12.7 billion years ago.
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