Scientists discovered a double neutron star system with one of the widest orbits after a bunch of high school students detected a pulsar using the data from Robert C Boyd's "Green Bank Telescope".
Pulsars are the neutron stars which spin rapidly in the system and are formed after the explosion of supernovae occurred. They are some of the rarest objects which are found in the universe, as they are formed after a unique chain of events take place.
This study says that almost 10 percent of the pulsars are found in binary systems, and the rest exist as dwarf stars, according to News Informer. Only a few of these pulsars are known to orbit a neutron star such as Sun. Cecilia McGough and De'Shang Ray first detected this pulsar, PSR J1930-1852 in the year 2012, according to Nat Monitor.
These students were working at the National Science Foundation summer workshop which deals in analyzing the survey data from Robert C Boyd's "Green Bank Telescope". These students were later invited to work with astronomers at the Green Bank to further contribute in this study.
Further, study about the pulsars revealed that the distance between the stars in this pulsar was the widest in any known double neutron star system. Generally, the double neutron star systems are very close to their orbit, allowing them to complete a single orbit in less than 24 hours.
However in this case, the stars are 32 million miles apart, completing one orbit in 45 days; which can be thought of as the distance between Sun and Mercury.