Disturbing radio waves from dead stars explained by swirling superfluid

The radio waves we see from pulsars have a mysterious flaw, but we now know the ingredients that must be present inside these ultra-dense stellar corpses to make their emissions sputter.

About 60 years ago, researchers noticed that the frequency of radio emissions from pulsars can vary suddenly and unexpectedly, indicating that the pulsar’s rotation has slowed down.

Pulsars are like nested…