Quote Originally Posted by Xyril View Post
As I have stated previously, it's not that we don't know they exist, it's that we don't know that they're pulsars. We know about a lot of roughly neutron-star-massed objects. We even know that a lot of objects are probably neutron stars. However, as far as I know, unless we happen to be on the arc where we see the "flashes," we can't actually tell that one of these neutron-star-sized things is a pulsar, which implies to me that if we don't see flashes, we can't no for sure that it isn't a pulsar.
I'm fairly certain that if can see its spectrum we can tell the difference between a .3 solar mass red dwarf, a .3 solar mass white dwarf, and a .3 solar mass neutron star. Since pulsars are neutron stars that spin and have strong magnetic fields, I think we cannot tell the difference between a .3 solar mass neutron star that doesn't spin and a .3 solar mass pulsar that just never points its beam in our direction.