Hot on the heels of the FoldIt paper in Nature, Science is publishing a bit of citizen science of its own. The results come from the Einstein@Home distributed computing project, which is one of the many projects now using the BOINC platform to perform distributed computing projects via a cross-platform screensaver. Although Einstein@Home users generally spend their time searching for gravity waves, a side project under the same umbrella has enabled a home computer to spot a rare pulsar in radio observatory data.

Pulsars are rapidly spinning neutron stars that have formed during a supernovae. Their rapid rotation causes the emission from the poles to sweep across the line-of-sight to the Earth, creating a periodic flash. Initially, most pulsars are energetic, rotating rapidly and emitting radiation in the X-ray region. But, over time, they spin down, and many only emit at radio frequencies.

Einstein@Home was launched in 2005 with the intention of searching for gravity waves, but a search for radiofrequency pulsars was started in 2009, using data from the Arecibo observatory; refinements to the search algorithm improved the rate of processing considerably. Home users get a bit under five minutes of observation data, and the computers search it for periodic signals arising from pulsars. In July, one of these home users spotted PSR J2007+2722, which was later confirmed by a number of ground-based observatories.

The paper describing the result helpfully points out that, based on the lack of X-rays and nearby gas clouds, PSR J2007+2722 appears to be a "disrupted recycled pulsar," but the authors neglect to define what that means. The astronomy literature suggests that this is a case where the pulsar started out as part of a binary system, but disrupted its companion and, in the process of drawing the matter in, got a rotational kick and spun back up.

The authors conclude that "This result demonstrates the capability of 'consumer' computational power for realizing discoveries in astronomy and other data-driven science." With the success of this and Foldit, chances are that those with consumer hardware may find more projects being made available to them.

Science, 2010. DOI: 10.1126/science.1195253 (About DOIs).