Could pulsars be two stars colliding?

Question

I was watching The Universe on the history channel tonight and I got an idea that two stars spin so fast when they collide that that is where pulsar's come from. Maybe I'm mad but thoughts are where thinking comes from. What do you think?

Answer 1

Pulsars don't come from star collisions but are instead the remnant dense cores of super giant stars left over after the star passes it's final evolutionary stage and goes super nova. The core is dense enough to have a strong gravitaional pull but not strong enough to become a black hole.

Answer 2

interesting idea but no. two stars orbitting each other wouldn't flash as much as fade from brighter to dimmer and back. take mira for example it is composed of two different stars and it varies in brightness by a fair amount over time. but there is a definite pattern there,  pulsars simply pulse from off to on, no real middle ground.

Answer 3

If two stars were to collide, they would not bounce back and collide again. The periodic nature of pulsar is incompatible with stellar collision.

Edit: a star could not be orbiting another strar at a rate that is compatible with the frequency of a pulsar. Actually, the high frequency of a pulsar is the indication how small (and dense) the object is, anything like a normal star would blow up from the spin. And a pulsar's pulse is in the radio frequency, if this was a normal star, the flash would be visible light, wouldn't it?

Answer 4

The Moon could be made of cheese, but instead it's made of rock.  Likewise, pulsars could be two stars colliding, but instead they are rotating neutron stars.