Extension Exercises
Now that you have familiarized yourself with Hera and the suite of timing analysis tools, and you have found the orbital period of GX301-2, you can explore some of Hera's more advanced timing analysis tools, to learn even more about this system.
In addition, there are several other data sets for other sources provided in the teachers' Hera module to explore. The first additional source is Cen X-3, a system where a pulsar is in orbit around a 17 solar mass (17 x the mass of the Sun) O star (very large blue star). The second is Vela X-1, a system composed of a neutron star in orbit around a B supergiant star that is about 34 times the size of the Sun. You can perform the same analysis on these data sets as you did on the GX301-2 lightcurve to find patterns and periods for these sources.
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