I forgot to post this a couple weeks back! It was the 20-year anniversary of one of the first exoplanets
ever found - and it was lurking around a pulsar!
Draugr (Norse for "undead creatures") is one of three planets that orbits the pulsar Lich (also an undead creature).
The official name of the system is PSR B1257+12 and it features the three planets in orbit around the nasty pulsar.
It's located about 1900 light-years away in the constellation Virgo and was discovered in 1994, two years after the first two exoplanets were found around Lich.
The *EXTREMELY NEAT* thing about Draugr is that, to date, it remains the least massive exoplanet ever discovered, even when compared to the planets in our Solar System - which tells us something!
Found through pulsar timing, its mass is only ~2 times the lunar mass.
Here's the discovery paper: https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.264.5158.538
Pulsar planets really have had it rough.
Remember, to form a pulsar you need a supernova! So they can be second-gen planets from supernova debris!
Read more about pulsar planets in my #SpaceAustralia article here: https://www.spaceaustralia.com/news/science-talk-what-are-pulsar-planets
📷 NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt
