PSR B1257+12 c, also called Poltergeist, is one of the first exoplanets ever confirmed, orbiting a millisecond pulsar about two thousand light-years away in the constellation Virgo. Its discoverers, the astronomers Aleksander Wolszczan and Dale Frail, noticed regular variations in the timing of the pulsar's radio pulses that could be explained by orbiting bodies. The 1992 announcement concerned the two outer planets now designated c and d, and a smaller innermost planet, b, was found a couple of years later, so the system is usually described as the first confirmed discovery of planets outside the Solar System. Planet c has a mass a few times that of Earth and circles the pulsar in about two months. How planets came to exist around a pulsar remains an interesting question, since they must have formed or survived after the star's supernova.
Before and after
- 1992Construction of Okapi Wildlife Reserve
- 1992Founding of National Stock Exchange of India
- 1992The first exoplanets are found around a pulsar
- from 11 January 1992 to 8 February 2002Algerian Civil War
- 22 January 1992Discovery of PSR B1257+12 c
- 22 January 1992Discovery of PSR B1257+12 d
- 5 February 1992Birth of Neymar
- 7 February 1992Maastricht Treaty
- 11 February 1992Founding of Central Bank of Azerbaijan
More in Universe & space
- 22 June 1978Discovery of Charon
- 24 April 1990Launch of Hubble Space Telescope
- 1998Supernovae show that cosmic expansion is accelerating
- 20 November 1998Launch of International Space Station
- 10 April 2019The first image of a black hole
- 25 December 2021Launch of James Webb Space Telescope
The era
This moment belongs to the Contemporary world (1945 CE to today), the world since 1945. You can also browse everything in the 20th century.