A Very Fast Pulsar!
Posted: Tue Mar 26, 2019 10:49 pm
By following up on mysterious high-energy sources mapped
out by NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, the Netherlands
- based Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) radio telescope has
identified a pulsar spinning at more than 42,000 revolutions
per minute, making it the second-fastest known. A pulsar is
the core of a massive star that exploded as a supernova. In
this stellar remnant, also called a neutron star, the equivalent
mass of half a million Earths is crushed into a magnetized,
spinning ball no larger than Washington, D.C. The rotating
magnetic field powers beams of radio waves, visible light,
X-rays and gamma rays. If a beam happens to sweep across
Earth, astronomers observe regular pulses of emission and
classify the object as a pulsar.
65053
https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/20 ... est-pulsar
out by NASA's Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, the Netherlands
- based Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) radio telescope has
identified a pulsar spinning at more than 42,000 revolutions
per minute, making it the second-fastest known. A pulsar is
the core of a massive star that exploded as a supernova. In
this stellar remnant, also called a neutron star, the equivalent
mass of half a million Earths is crushed into a magnetized,
spinning ball no larger than Washington, D.C. The rotating
magnetic field powers beams of radio waves, visible light,
X-rays and gamma rays. If a beam happens to sweep across
Earth, astronomers observe regular pulses of emission and
classify the object as a pulsar.
65053
- Hot To Trot
- 65053.jpg (71.63 KiB) Viewed 1392 times