Pulsar
PSR B1831-00 (J1834-0010)
Radio pulsar · binary system
A neutron star spinning once every 0.521 seconds; the beams from its magnetic poles sweep across Earth on every turn. It shares a 1.811 days orbit with a very-low-mass companion. Period, spin-down, distance and orbit come from the ATNF Pulsar Catalogue; the beam geometry is illustrative.
| Type | Pulsar |
|---|---|
| Constellation | Serpens |
| Period | 521.0 ms |
| Period derivative | 1.1×10⁻¹⁷ s/s |
| Characteristic age | 784 million years |
| Magnetic field | 7.5×10¹⁰ G |
| Spin-down luminosity | 2.9×10³⁰ erg/s |
| Dispersion measure | 88.7 pc/cm³ |
| Distance | 3,351 pc (10.9 thousand ly) |
| Companion | very-low-mass companion (estimated), ~0.073 M☉ |
| Orbital period | 1.811 days |
| Eccentricity | 0.0040 |
| Discovery | 1985 · gb2, lotaas, pksmb |
| Source | ATNF Pulsar Catalogue |
| Right ascension (J2000) | 18h 34m 17.3s |
| Declination (J2000) | −0° 10′ 53″ |
In the sky
Visible from the whole Southern Hemisphere and north to latitude 90° N. It stands highest at midnight in June, the best time to observe it.
Through a telescope from Earth
Light's journey
The light you see tonight set out 11 thousand years ago. At that time the first farming villages were being founded; there was no writing yet. At the speed of Voyager 1, the fastest craft leaving the Solar System (16.9 km per second), the trip would take 194 million years.