Crab Pulsar

neutron star · 1.4 Suns crushed into 20 km

6,500 light-years from Earth

A ball of neutrons as dense as an atomic nucleus, spinning 30 times a second. Beams from its magnetic poles sweep past Earth like a lighthouse.

• P = 33.7 ms (shown ~50x slower) · slowing 38 ns per day
• its spin-down powers the nebula: ~4.5x10^31 W

kind

star

with

Crab Nebula