Crab Pulsar
Pulsar · Neutron star
At the heart of the Crab Nebula is a neutron star only about 20 km across but heavier than the Sun. It spins about 30 times every second, blasting out beams of radiation that light up the whole nebula.
- 6,500 light-years awayEven light – the fastest thing there is – needs 6,500 years to get here.
- ~20 km acrossYou could line up 637 of them across Earth.
- ~30 times per secondSpins
Take a closer look
A whirling surface
Spinning about 30 times a second, a ball about 20 km across moves astonishingly fast at its surface – roughly 2,000 km every second at its equator. Its gravity is so strong that any “mountains” on it are thought to be at most a few millimetres tall.
Slowly winding down
The Crab Pulsar is gradually slowing as it pours energy into the nebula around it. Each day its spin takes less than a ten-millionth of a second longer, but over thousands of years that adds up. Scientists can measure this tiny change because the pulses are so regular.
Wisps and jets
Close-up images from Hubble and the Chandra X-ray telescope show glowing rings and wisps around the pulsar, plus jets shooting out from its poles. The wisps change shape over days and weeks. They show the pulsar’s wind blasting into the nebula at a large fraction of the speed of light.
How we found out
- 1968
Radio astronomers discover the pulsar inside the Crab Nebula, linking pulsars to supernovae.
- 1969
It becomes one of the first pulsars seen flashing in visible light.
What is a neutron star made of?
Mostly neutrons squeezed so tightly together that they form a kind of giant atomic nucleus the size of a city.
See it yourself
Inside the Crab Nebula in Taurus – only big telescopes can see its flashes.
From the encyclopedia
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