Crab Pulsar gamma rays baffle scientists  Posted by Kate Taylor
Scientists say the Crab Pulsar is blasting out gamma rays at a
higher rate than can be explained by current scientific
models.         It's emitting the highest-energy gamma rays ever
observed from a pulsar - a highly magnetized and rapidly
spinning neutron star - at more than 100 billion electron volts.
That's more than 50 billion times more energy than the visible
light from the sun.  "This is the highest energy pulsar system
ever detected," said Rene Ong, a UCLA professor of physics and
astronomy and spokesperson for the VERITAS collaboration at the
Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics. "It is a completely
new and surprising phenomenon for pulsars."  All previous
observations of pulsars have indicated that the radiation cuts
off at the high energies the team observed.  "It means the
radiation we detect must be a new component that was completely
unexpected," says Ong.  The Crab Pulsar spins at about 30 times
a second, emitting gamma ra