Earthsky Interviews
Private: Scale of cosmos gives astronomer perspective
April 15, 2007 - Space
Maura McLaughlin: _Most of the time I’m just sitting here in my office with my computer, writing computer programs to do this or that … Sometimes, I forget about how amazing it is that we are actually looking at things that are thousands of light-years away._
That’s Maura McLaughlin at West Virginia University. She helped discover a pair of pulsars in orbit around each other.
Pulsars are collapsed stars. If our sun became one, it’d be only as wide as an earthly city, instead of 100 times Earth’s diameter.
The double pulsar system discovered by McLaughlin’s team is thought to be 2,000 light years away. Yet, the team learned that these pulsars are spiraling into each other at a rate of 7 millimeters each day – or about the width of a pencil.
Maura McLaughlin: _You have a really good day at work, and you find something really big like this, and it does put things in perspective. And when you’re worrying about trying to get the garbage out on time, and you think, “Wow, I’ve just been looking at things that are thousands of light-years away. How important, really, is it, that I’m holding on to my recycling for one more week because I forgot it.” Little problems on Earth do seem more insignificant when you try to put them in perspective._
Tell us your perspective below, in the comments. Thanks today to “Research Corporation”:http://www.rescorp.org, a foundation for the advancement of science.
Our thanks to:
Maura McLaughlin
Department of Physics
University of West Virginia
Morgantown, West Virginia