Catching a Gravitational Wave with a Pulsar’s Beam

Pulsars captivate Maura McLaughlin, a professor at West Virginia University. These highly magnetized neutron stars flash beams of electromagnetic radiation as they spin. And with masses equivalent to that of the Sun, but diameters seventy thousand times smaller, they are—besides black holes—the densest objects in the Universe. Astrophysicists still have many questions about pulsars, ranging from how they emit electromagnetic radiation to why they are so incredibly dense. But it’s exploiting the highly stable, periodic electromagnetic signals of pulsars to study gravitational waves that currently has McLaughlin hooked. In an interview with Physics, she explained where her fascination with pulsars came from, what gravitational-wave sources she hopes to detect, and why she recently visited Washington, D.C., to talk with members of Congress.