Pulsar
PSR B0456-69 (J0455-6951)
Radio pulsar
A neutron star spinning once every 0.320 seconds; the beams from its magnetic poles sweep across Earth on every turn. Not in the Milky Way but in the Large Magellanic Cloud. Period, spin-down, distance and orbit come from the ATNF Pulsar Catalogue; the beam geometry is illustrative.
| Type | Pulsar |
|---|---|
| Constellation | Mensa |
| Host galaxy | Large Magellanic Cloud |
| Period | 320.4 ms |
| Period derivative | 1.0×10⁻¹⁴ s/s |
| Characteristic age | 497 thousand years |
| Magnetic field | 1.8×10¹² G |
| Spin-down luminosity | 1.2×10³⁴ erg/s |
| Dispersion measure | 94.7 pc/cm³ |
| Distance | 49,700 pc (162.1 thousand ly) |
| Discovery | 1991 · misc |
| Source | ATNF Pulsar Catalogue |
| Right ascension (J2000) | 4h 55m 47.5s |
| Declination (J2000) | −69° 51′ 34″ |
In the sky
Visible from the whole Southern Hemisphere and north to latitude 20° N. South of latitude 20° S it never sets. It stands highest at midnight in December, the best time to observe it.
Through a telescope from Earth
Light's journey
The light you see tonight set out 162 thousand years ago. At that time Homo sapiens was spreading out of Africa; there was no farming yet. At the speed of Voyager 1, the fastest craft leaving the Solar System (16.9 km per second), the trip would take 2.9 billion years.